Recast vs SciSummary

Recast uses Claude AI to turn PDFs, article URLs, text, or topics into platform-ready content. It offers nine formats, including social posts, video scripts, newsletters, blog outlines, takeaways, and hooks. Study Mode creates study guides, slide decks, flashcards, quizzes, and citations from course material. Tone and reading-level controls are available; the Free Beta also includes Brand Voice and translation into 10 languages. Free Beta costs nothing, allows 10 generations per day across nine formats and five input types, and requires your own Anthropic API key. Anthropic charges usage directly, typically 0.05–$0.30 depending on length. Recast says keys, history, and browser-stored data remain on your device, while inputs go directly from the browser to Anthropic. URL pages are fetched through allorigins.win. Flashcards export to Anki and Quizlet. Planned Pro costs $15 a month and lists unlimited generations, no API key, bulk upload up to 10 files, priority generation, and founder support.

SciSummary uses AI to help scientists, researchers, and students understand scientific papers through summaries, analysis, and extracted insights. Summaries are organized into abstract, methods, results, and conclusion sections. It can combine multiple papers into one summary and compare them, while folders and tags organize a research library. Figure chat interprets p-values, confidence intervals, and effect sizes. The service extracts abstracts, figures, and references and highlights key findings. Its web and API access includes a bulk API accepting PDFs, links, or full text, with hundreds of documents supported in one request. A REST API includes an official CLI and generated SDK clients from its OpenAPI specification. An MCP server connects with Claude Desktop and ChatGPT. SciSummary also summarizes webpages and accepts file uploads. Pricing is paid, starting at $4/mo (annual), with a 7-day trial and no standard free plan.