Gephi vs VOSviewer
Gephi
gephi.orgVOSviewer
vosviewer.comSide by side
| Figure | Gephi | VOSviewer |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Graph Visualization Tools Software | 8.6 (#1) | 7.4 (#9) |
| Data sources | GEXF,GDF,GML,GraphML,Pajek NET,GraphViz DOT,CSV,UCINET DL,Tulip TPL,Netdraw VNA,spreadsheets,databases | The software supports data from Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, Lens, PubMed, Crossref, Europe PMC, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, OpenCitations, and WikiData. |
| Purpose | Gephi helps users explore, manipulate, and understand complex networks. | VOSviewer constructs and visualizes bibliometric networks and can visualize co-occurrence networks of terms extracted from scientific literature. |
| Visualization | The desktop app uses a custom OpenGL engine for interactive network exploration and supports force-driven layouts and real-time filtering. | Visualizations include density and overlay views, zooming and scrolling, and high-resolution screenshots saved in bitmap or vector formats. |
Plans
In their own words
VOSviewer
VOSviewer constructs and visualizes bibliometric networks, including networks of terms found together in scientific literature. It supports networks based on citation, bibliographic coupling, co-citation and co-authorship, drawing on sources including Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, Lens, PubMed, Crossref, Europe PMC, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, OpenCitations and WikiData. Analysis tools include network layout and clustering, English-language text mining, fractional counting and thesaurus-based data cleaning. Visualizations include density and overlay views, with zooming and scrolling; high-resolution screenshots can be saved as bitmap or vector files. VOSviewer Online runs in a browser, opens JSON and map and network files, and shares visualizations through links, QR codes or embeddable HTML. The stand-alone version can share through Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox. The software is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and the web; the download page also offers a JAR version for other systems. Running it requires Java 8 or higher. The maker describes its analyses as useful to research institutions and research funders. VOSviewer can be used freely for any purpose.