Consensus vs SciSpace
Consensus
consensus.app
SciSpace
scispace.comSide by side
| Figure | Consensus | SciSpace |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $5.83/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 16 |
| Spec score · Research Paper Discovery Tools | 9.3 (#1) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · AI Research Assistants | 9.4 (#1) | 8.7 (#7) |
| Spec score · AI Search Engines | 9.4 (#1) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | Milpitas, California, USA |
| Integrations | Consensus supports Zotero library import and exports CSV or RIS files compatible with reference managers including EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero. | SciSpace says users can import references from Zotero or EndNote; its Zotero guide notes papers without a DOI will not be imported. |
| Privacy | Consensus says user content sent for AI processing is not used to train its models or third-party models, and it does not attach account identifiers to that content. | SciSpace says uploaded PDFs are private, accessible only to the user, and are not used to train its AI models. |
| Rating on Trustpilot | 2.5 out of 5 from 6 reviews | 4.3 out of 5 from 405 reviews. |
| Research corpus | The service says its database contains more than 220 million peer-reviewed research papers. | SciSpace AI Writer says it can search and cite from more than 280 million papers. |
| Support | The company offers support through in-product Support Chat and at [email protected]. | Official pages publish [email protected] as the support contact. |
| What it does | Consensus is an AI academic search engine that retrieves scientific papers and produces cited syntheses. | SciSpace describes itself as an end-to-end platform for discovering, analyzing and writing scientific literature. |
Plans
Consensus
- ProPriced on request
- DeepPriced on request
- Free TierFree
- Pro$20 a month
- Deep$65 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- TeamsPriced on request
SciSpace
- Premium$12 a month
- Advanced$70 a month
- Max$160 a month
- BasicFree
- BasicFree
- Premium$12 a month
- Team$12 a month
- Researcher$20 a month
- Advanced$70 a year
- Advanced$70 a month
In their own words
Consensus
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.
SciSpace
SciSpace is a platform for finding, analyzing, and writing about scientific literature. Its literature review tool searches more than 280 million articles and organizes concise findings in tables with customizable columns. Chat with PDF offers citation-backed answers, section-by-section summaries, explanations of highlighted passages, and related-paper recommendations. Writing tools include AI-assisted suggestions, paraphrasing in context, style improvements, and an editor supporting more than 75 languages. Users can import references from Zotero or EndNote, though the Zotero import flow excludes papers without a DOI. A Chrome extension explains selected text, math, and tables; its mobile app is for iOS and supports searching, summarizing, and exploring peer-reviewed journals. SciSpace says its repository has metadata for 200 million-plus papers and 50 million-plus open-access full-text PDFs. It lists extension, iOS, and web access. The free plan is free and includes 100 monthly credits; paid plans start at $20/mo. SciSpace says uploaded PDFs are private to the user and are not used to train its AI models.