Encyclopaedia Britannica vs Encyclopedia.com

Encyclopaedia Britannica is a web-based encyclopedia and reference service, with limited digital content available to visitors without a premium membership. Premium membership unlocks unlimited, ad-free access to more than 130,000 fact-checked articles, along with more than 60,000 images and videos, maps, infographics, and illustrations. Learning materials include biographies, quizzes, games, topic roundups, and homework help. Members also receive limited-run newsletters, e-books, and digital access to content from Britannica’s first edition. Britannica lists citation tools, educator resources, institutional access, and multimedia and interactive formats. Kids content requires a premium membership. A free access plan is listed at free. Premium pricing is available on request; Britannica also offers monthly memberships and academic and corporate subscriptions. Monthly members can cancel at any time. Customer support is available by phone on weekdays, with hours varying by inquiry. Founded in 1768, Britannica is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Encyclopedia.com is a free web reference service with over 300,000 entries from published sources including Oxford University Press and the Columbia Encyclopedia. It also offers more than 50,000 topic summaries with related pictures, videos, and newspaper and magazine articles. The site says it continually updates partner content and allows searches across more than 200 encyclopedias and reference books. Users can search with keywords or browse alphabetically. Results are ordered by relevance according to how often a search term appears in an article. The FAQ gives citation details for The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, including its 2008 publication information. The service is available on the web, and its privacy policy also refers to a mobile application named “Encyclopedia.” Terms allow personal searching, display, downloading, and printing, but prohibit systematic downloading or scraping without permission. The privacy policy describes collection of account, device, browsing, cookie, and session information, as well as an advertising affiliation with CMI Marketing, doing business as CafeMedia.