Consensus vs Litmaps

Consensus is an AI workspace and academic search engine for scientific research, available on web, Android, iOS, and as an extension. It searches more than 220 million peer-reviewed papers, with the database updated weekly, and offers filters for publication date, access, citations, journal rank, study design, population, sample size, and other paper details. Its Research Agent plans multi-step searches, uses tools such as citation crawling and DOI lookup, and returns citation-backed answers. Consensus says citations in its AI summaries correspond to exact paper quotes, with the relevant section identified and PDF text highlighted when available. Medical Mode searches a selected collection of about 8 million papers and 50,000 clinical guidelines from the top 1,000 medical journals. Users can import Zotero libraries and export CSV or RIS files for reference managers. Consensus also works in ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft 365 Copilot; API and MCP calls share a monthly allowance. The Free Tier costs nothing. Pro is $20 a month, or $144/year billed annually; Deep is $65 a month, or $540/year billed annually.

Litmaps is a web-based research tool that uses citation networks and advanced search to help researchers find papers and conduct literature reviews. Its search catalogue contains more than 270 million papers. A Litmap visualizes connections among articles through citations and references; users can annotate papers and change how the map is arranged. Topic monitoring sends automatic emails when new articles appear, and maps can be shared as images, public links, or with selected email addresses. The free plan costs nothing and includes basic search, up to 20 inputs and 100 articles, one Litmap, and a monthly summary, but no collaboration. Pro (Education) costs $10 a month, billed $120 / year - save 20%; it adds advanced search, unlimited inputs, articles, and Litmaps, plus daily or configurable alerts, and requires an academic email address. Litmaps Pro syncs Zotero collections with Litmaps Tags in both directions. Articles can also be imported from BibTeX, RIS, or PubMed files and exported in BibTeX, RIS, or CSV formats. Open Access PDFs are available to all users; other PDF access requires institutional access through LibKey.