CourtListener vs Docket Alarm
CourtListener
courtlistener.com
Docket Alarm
docketalarm.comSide by side
| Figure | CourtListener | Docket Alarm |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $10/mo | $39.99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 4 |
| Spec score · Legal Research Software | 8.2 (#10) | 9.2 (#1) |
| Alerts | CourtListener provides alerts for topics, people, companies, citations, and other monitored searches. | Users can track cases, parties, attorneys, firms, keyword searches and Nature of Suit categories, with updates by email up to 16 times a day. |
| Support | CourtListener help documentation covers donations and memberships, data coverage, developer documentation, content removal, and direct contact support. | GetApp lists email/help desk, chat, knowledge base, FAQ/forum and phone support, with documentation, live online, webinar and in-person training. |
Plans
CourtListener
- Free Tier Non-MembersFree
- Tier 1$10 a month
- Tier 2$25 a month
- Tier 3$50 a month
- Tier 4$100 a month
Docket Alarm
- FreeFree
- Pay-As-You-Go$39.99 a month
- Flat-Fee$99 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
CourtListener
CourtListener is a web-based legal research service with a searchable archive covering opinions from U.S. federal and state courts, oral arguments, judges, judicial financial records, and federal filings. Its RECAP Archive includes nearly every federal case, hundreds of millions of docket entries, and tens of millions of legal documents. Search tools cover case law, dockets, and citations, and alerts can track topics, people, companies, citations, and other searches. Free Law Project also provides REST APIs, bulk data files, webhooks, database replication, and an MCP server through which AI assistants can access CourtListener data and APIs. The project is built on open source technology. The free non-member plan includes five docket alerts, unlimited daily opinion search alerts, five daily RECAP search alerts, five Pray & Pay requests, and API limits of 5 per minute, 50 per hour, and 125 per day. Paid tiers list higher limits. Complimentary EDU and qualifying LSO memberships are also available.
Docket Alarm
Docket Alarm is a litigation intelligence platform for searching, tracking and analyzing court dockets and documents. The maker says its collection includes over 1 billion dockets and documents from courts in the United States and elsewhere. Search supports full text, Boolean and phrase queries, with filters for court, date range, judge, party, attorney and case type. Users can follow cases, parties, attorneys, firms, keywords and Nature of Suit categories, receiving email updates up to 16 times daily. They can read indexed filings, connect to PACER and bulk-download case documents. Talk to Docket answers natural-language questions about a docket and cites entries and documents. Analytics cover motion outcomes, time to decision and trends by court and judge; Timeline presents docket entries as a visual chronology. The REST API supports case searches, docket and document retrieval, tracking, and natural-language questions. An ECF connection can deliver tracked filings inside the platform at no cost. Plans range from a free tier with five weekly actions to monthly paid options.