Perplexity vs SciSpace
Perplexity
perplexity.aiSciSpace
scispace.comSide by side
| Figure | Perplexity | SciSpace |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $5.83/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 15 | 16 |
| Spec score · AI Search Engines | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Spec score · AI Research Assistants | 8.9 (#6) | 8.7 (#7) |
| Company identity | The pricing page identifies Perplexity as AI for the curious and shows a 2026 copyright. | The official site footer identifies the legal entity as PubGenius Inc. |
| App integrations | Yes | SciSpace says users can import references from Zotero or EndNote; its Zotero guide notes papers without a DOI will not be imported. |
| Support | Max subscribers receive priority support with dedicated infrastructure and faster response times. | Official pages publish [email protected] as the support contact. |
Plans
Perplexity
- FreeFree
- Pro$20 a month
- Max$200 a month
- Education ProPriced on request
- Education ProPrice not published
- Enterprise Pro$40 a month
- Enterprise Max$325 a month
- FreeFree
- Pro$20 a month
- Max$200 a month
SciSpace
- Premium$12 a month
- Advanced$70 a month
- Max$160 a month
- BasicFree
- BasicFree
- Premium$12 a month
- Team$12 a month
- Researcher$20 a month
- Advanced$70 a year
- Advanced$70 a month
In their own words
Perplexity
Perplexity is an answer engine that searches the open web and returns answers with inline citations. It can search files and connected apps alongside the web, and can select among more than 20 leading models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Nemotron. Deep Research conducts searches across many sources and produces a report. Access is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with an API also listed. The free plan has limited weekly use for simple questions. Pro costs $20 a month and adds Computer, premium data sources, web search, files, apps, model council, and model selection. Max costs $200 a month and offers higher limits for Deep Research, resource generation, file uploads, and monthly video creation. Enterprise Pro is $40 a month per seat; Enterprise Max is $325 a month per seat. Enterprise plans bill by seat, and API use requires separate credits. Perplexity lists more than 400 app connectors.
SciSpace
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.