Litmaps vs SciSpace

Litmaps is a web-based research tool that uses citation networks and advanced search to help researchers find papers and conduct literature reviews. Its search catalogue contains more than 270 million papers. A Litmap visualizes connections among articles through citations and references; users can annotate papers and change how the map is arranged. Topic monitoring sends automatic emails when new articles appear, and maps can be shared as images, public links, or with selected email addresses. The free plan costs nothing and includes basic search, up to 20 inputs and 100 articles, one Litmap, and a monthly summary, but no collaboration. Pro (Education) costs $10 a month, billed $120 / year - save 20%; it adds advanced search, unlimited inputs, articles, and Litmaps, plus daily or configurable alerts, and requires an academic email address. Litmaps Pro syncs Zotero collections with Litmaps Tags in both directions. Articles can also be imported from BibTeX, RIS, or PubMed files and exported in BibTeX, RIS, or CSV formats. Open Access PDFs are available to all users; other PDF access requires institutional access through LibKey.

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.