ChatPDF vs Scholarcy

ChatPDF lets users summarize documents and ask questions about their contents using conversational AI. Answers include citations that point to references in a PDF, and users can organize files in folders or discuss multiple PDFs in one conversation. It accepts PDFs in any language and supports conversations in any language; listed file types also include Word, PowerPoint, Markdown and text. Sharing links can be created, with access permissions managed or revoked. ChatPDF says documents are encrypted during transfer and storage and can be deleted by the user. Queries are routed dynamically between GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini. The service works in a browser on any device and is listed for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows. Its backend API accepts uploaded PDFs or public URLs and lets users query them to build custom PDF chatbots. The API documentation limits each PDF to 2,000 pages or 32 MB and describes the chat API as stateless. The Free plan costs nothing and allows two documents per day.

Scholarcy turns research material into interactive summary flashcards that highlight key information and provide context. It accepts research papers, PDFs, book chapters, online articles, plain text and YouTube videos. Users can add content by uploading or dropping files, entering a webpage URL, pasting text or using a browser extension. Enhanced summaries can be tailored to reading styles such as School level, General reader, Bulleted list, Undergrad level, One liner and Researcher. Research tools include cited-work findings, article prompts and questions, a Research Quality Indicator and comparisons with related research. Scholarcy imports directly from Zotero and exports referenced summaries to Markdown for tools including Roam, Obsidian and Notion. Extensions are offered for Chrome, Edge and Firefox; Safari is listed as coming soon. The free plan costs nothing and allows 10 summaries, with flashcards exported one at a time. Scanned PDFs without extractable text are unsupported unless OCR is run first, and URLs behind paywalls may not import. Scholarcy says customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit.