Crossref Similarity Check vs PlagAware

Crossref Similarity Check is a paid plagiarism-screening service for Crossref members. It compares submitted manuscripts with academic publications and general web content, using Turnitin’s iThenticate software. Reports provide a Similarity Score and highlight matching passages for editorial review. Crossref says the comparison database contains over 78 million full-text scholarly content items. Editors can submit manuscripts in iThenticate or through a manuscript system using the API, then receive an immediate report describing potential matches and overlap. Membership includes read-only database access, discounted checking fees, unlimited organizational users, and enhanced text matches in Document Viewer. Participation requires Crossref membership, active publication of DOI-assigned content, and full-text URLs in metadata. The annual service fee is $40 a year, representing 20% of the membership fee. Per-document checking is free for the first 100 documents yearly, then volume-tier charges apply to documents up to 25,000 words.

PlagAware is a plagiarism search engine for educational institutions, businesses, and individuals. Its FullScan technology checks submitted text against more than 70 billion online documents and user-provided comparison texts, while text monitoring can flag potential copying or duplication on texts and web pages. An AI detector looks for stereotypical language associated with systems such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and LLaMA; PlagAware says it does not send data to those external providers. Reports can be edited interactively, downloaded as PDFs, and shared through permanent links. Users can paste text, upload TXT, RTF, HTML, DOC, DOCX, ODT, and PDF files, or submit through the API. The web application works in supported modern browsers without workstation installation and offers integrations for Moodle, SharePoint, Joomla, WordPress, and Blogger. It accepts texts up to 750,000 characters, files up to 15 MB, and up to 50 parallel uploads. A significant coverage limit is that it does not access non-public sources such as paid scientific journal articles or paid portal content. Plans include free use, subscriptions, and prepaid credits; Subscription Light is €2.99/month with a six-month minimum term.