OpenAlex
openalex.org
What it is
OpenAlex is a free and open catalog of scholarly research, with a REST API for querying connected records such as works, authors, sources, institutions, and topics. API users can search, filter, sort, group, page through results, select fields, and retrieve individual entities. The complete database snapshot can be downloaded from Amazon S3 without an AWS account, and the data is released under the CC0 public-domain license. An official command-line tool supports bulk downloads with parallel transfers, checkpoints, rate limiting, retries, and resume. Full-text access provides PDFs and machine-readable TEI XML; each file download costs $0.01. Website exports include CSV, RIS, and TXT, while VOSviewer connects through the API. OpenAlex also offers Unpaywall's legacy-format open-access API, including a browser extension and integrations with SFX, EBSCO Discovery Service, and 360 Link. Its coverage includes journal articles, conference papers, books, chapters, datasets, dissertations, and preprints. OpenAlex is operated by a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and its code is open source.
Spec sheet
- What it does
- OpenAlex is an open index and knowledge graph covering scholarly works, authors, sources, institutions, topics and related entities.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Product
- OpenAlex is a free and open catalog of the world's scholarly research system.Read 30 Sep 2026 · explore.openalex.org
- API
- The REST API exposes entity endpoints with filtering, searching, sorting, grouping, pagination, field selection and single-record lookup.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Integrations
- Website exports support CSV, RIS for EndNote or Zotero, and TXT, while VOSviewer connects directly through the API.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Support
- Member includes community support, Member+ includes ticket-based help for critical API bugs, and Partner includes full ticket-based support for API and data issues.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Founded
- OpenAlex's transparency page says Impactstory incorporated in North Carolina in 2012.Read 15 Oct 2026 · openalex.org
- Advanced search
- Advanced search adds proximity matching, exact matching, wildcards and queries up to about 8 KB.Read 15 Oct 2026 · blog.openalex.org
- AI connector limits
- The connector cannot bulk-export result sets, fetch PDFs, calculate total citations across a work set or edit profiles other than the connected user's own.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- AI integration
- The OpenAlex MCP connector works in Claude web, desktop, mobile and Claude Code, while compatibility with other MCP clients is possible through Streamable HTTP and OAuth.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- API authentication
- Basic API queries work without a key, while a free verified key raises the daily budget tenfold and is required for cursor paging beyond the first page.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- API pricing
- The published usage rates are $0 for single-record lookups, $0.0001 per list or filter call, $0.001 per search call and $0.01 per PDF or XML download.Read 15 Oct 2026 · blog.openalex.org
- CLI
- The official CLI installs with pip, supports parallel downloads, checkpointing, adaptive rate limiting, DOI resolution and PDF or TEI XML retrieval.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- CLI limitation
- The CLI is still in progress and currently focuses on work metadata and content downloads; CSV export and other entity types are planned.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Company size
- LinkedIn lists OpenAlex as a nonprofit research-services organization with 2–10 employees.Read 15 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Data licence
- OpenAlex data is released under CC0, except the MAG-format snapshot, which uses ODC-BY.Read 15 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Data license
- OpenAlex data is released under the CC0 public-domain license.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Full text
- The full-text service provides PDFs and machine-readable TEI XML, with per-file downloads priced at $0.01 each.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Full-text archive
- OpenAlex provides cached PDF and machine-readable TEI XML links for more than 50 million open-access works through its content API.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Funding
- OurResearch announced a $7.5 million, five-year Arcadia grant on 13 March 2024 to establish OpenAlex as sustainable open infrastructure.Read 15 Oct 2026 · blog.openalex.org
- Independent API assessment
- Singapore Management University notes that the API links authors, works, venues, institutions and concepts through separate endpoints and exposes fields such as retraction and open-access status.Read 15 Oct 2026 · library.smu.edu.sg
- Independent comparison
- CASRAI characterizes OpenAlex as globally scoped and nonprofit maintained, with more coverage than Scopus or Web of Science but less precision about which institutional output belongs to an institution.Read 15 Oct 2026 · casrai.org
- Independent description
- Singapore Management University describes OpenAlex as a free open-source index aggregating and standardizing data from MAG, Crossref, ORCID, Unpaywall and repositories.Read 15 Oct 2026 · library.smu.edu.sg
- Independent evidence-synthesis limit
- A Norwegian Institute of Public Health evaluation found OpenAlex useful for identifying many relevant studies but concluded that adding it to traditional searches did not save time or resources.Read 15 Oct 2026 · fhi.no
- Independent interface assessment
- Utrecht University documents Boolean filtering, citation navigation and API use for automated retrieval, while noting that the interface stems searches automatically and cannot disable stemming.Read 15 Oct 2026 · libguides.library.uu.nl
- Independent metadata limit
- A 2025 arXiv study reports numerous missing abstracts, affiliations and references, weaknesses in document-type and language identification, authority-control and versioning problems, and a need for extensive data cleaning.Read 15 Oct 2026 · arxiv.org
- Independent praise: openness
- CASRAI highlights that OpenAlex data can be exported and retained by institutions, reducing dependence on a proprietary vendor's continued access.Read 15 Oct 2026 · casrai.org
- Launch news
- Nature reported on 24 January 2022 that OpenAlex had launched as a free index containing more than 200 million scientific documents.Read 15 Oct 2026 · nature.com
- Legal entity
- The privacy policy identifies the legal entity as Impactstory, Inc., with a postal address in Sanford, North Carolina.Read 15 Oct 2026 · openalex.org
- Limit: abstract format
- Singapore Management University notes that abstracts are supplied as inverted indexes rather than plain text, so applications need additional cleanup to reconstruct readable abstracts.Read 15 Oct 2026 · library.smu.edu.sg
- Limit: service availability
- The terms state that OpenAlex may change or withdraw features without notice and does not guarantee uninterrupted availability.Read 15 Oct 2026 · openalex.org
- No-code website
- The web interface supports keyword search, filters, facets, sorting and CSV export without syntax, an account or charge.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Organization
- OpenAlex is operated by a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all code is open source.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Query methods
- Users can query through the website, REST URLs, OpenAlex Query Language, a command-line interface or an AI-agent connector.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Security guidance
- OpenAlex passes externally sourced text fields through without sanitizing them and advises users to escape output and follow OWASP XSS-prevention practices.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Self-hosting
- Organizations can download the complete snapshot or use paid daily synchronization to maintain their own OpenAlex copy.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Semantic search
- Semantic search matches meaning rather than only keywords and can accept a complete abstract, but the feature is marked beta.Read 15 Oct 2026 · blog.openalex.org
- Snapshot
- The public snapshot is free, needs no AWS account and is distributed as JSON Lines or Apache Parquet from Amazon S3.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Snapshot size
- The September 2026 snapshot contains about 626 million records per format, with compressed JSON Lines around 745 GB and Parquet around 770 GB.Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Unpaywall
- Unpaywall is OpenAlex's legacy-format open-access API surface, including a browser extension and integrations with SFX, EBSCO Discovery Service, and 360 Link.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
- Website
- The website supports search, filtering, and exporting result lists without coding.Read 30 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
Plans and prices
Pay as you go $1 a month Prepaid usage expires 3 months after the most recent purchase $1 increments Read 20 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
Member $5,000 a year Annual plan $20/day API budget · $7,300/year of usage Read 20 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
Member+ $10,000 a year Annual plan $100/day API budget · $36,500/year of usage Read 20 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
Partner $20,000 a year Starts at $20,000 and scales with use case $200+/day API budget · 3 power-user accounts · 5 consulting hours per year Read 20 Sep 2026 · help.openalex.org
Free Free $1 API usage per day; resets daily No payment method · API key · suitable for most research and personal projects Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
Pay as you go $1, paid once Prepaid in $1 increments; expires 3 months after most recent purchase Adds usage after free daily budget is exhausted Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
Member $5,000 a year $5,000/year $20/day API budget · admin dashboard · advisory-board nominations · quarterly supporter meetings · community support Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
Member+ $10,000 a year $10,000/year $100/day API budget · daily database snapshot and changed-since filters · critical API bug support · all Member benefits Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
Partner $20,000 a year Starting at $20,000/year; scales with use case $200+/day API budget · full ticket support · three academic/government power users · five consulting hours/year · all Member+ benefits Read 15 Oct 2026 · help.openalex.org
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Free snapshot download without an AWS account
- CC0 public-domain data license
- API supports search, filtering, grouping, and field selection
- Official CLI supports resumable bulk downloads
Limits
- Full-text file downloads cost $0.01 each
- Externally sourced text fields are passed through unsanitized
Who it suits
It suits researchers and developers who need a multidisciplinary scholarly catalog, API access, or a downloadable data snapshot. Users handling externally sourced text should account for OpenAlex's security guidance.
Verdict
OpenAlex combines an openly licensed research catalog with API, snapshot, and bulk-download access. Its warning about unsanitized text fields matters when displaying returned content.
Where Specifiction places it
- Academic Research Databases#2 of 358.9
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