SciSpace vs The Lens
SciSpace
scispace.comThe Lens
lens.orgSide by side
| Figure | SciSpace | The Lens |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5.83/mo | $83.33/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 16 | 7 |
| Spec score · Research Paper Discovery Tools | 8.7 (#4) | 7.7 (#12) |
| Headquarters | Milpitas, California, USA | West End, Queensland, Australia |
| Privacy | SciSpace says uploaded PDFs are private, accessible only to the user, and are not used to train its AI models. | The privacy policy says registered users may opt out of search-history recording and web analytics, and guest use does not require providing an email address. |
| Purpose | SciSpace describes itself as an end-to-end platform for discovering, analyzing, and writing scientific literature. | The Lens connects scholarly and technological knowledge, including patents and scholarly works, to support discovery, analysis, decision-making and partnering. |
| Support | Official pages publish [email protected] as the support contact. | The Lens lists [email protected] and [email protected] as contact emails and provides a support request form. |
Plans
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
The Lens
- Academic / non-commercial accessPriced on request
- Individual commercial use$1,000 a year
- Academic WorkspaceFree
- Anonymous accessFree
- API TrialFree
- Individual Professional Workspace$1,000 a year
- API Member | Custom AccessPriced on request
In their own words
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.
The Lens
The Lens connects scholarly literature and patent records for discovery, analysis, decision-making, and partnering. Patent search offers Boolean, structured, biological, and classification queries, alongside filters and sorting. The Lens says its scholarly collection contains more than 200 million records and links scholarly works to patents through citations. PatSeq tools search, analyze, and share biological sequences disclosed in patents. Search results can be visualized in charts and dashboards, which users may save and share. Registered users can save collections and queries, add notes, and receive notifications when new indexed results match them. Lens Profiles combine author and inventor records and support ORCID linking and synchronization. Anonymous browsing is free, as is a non-commercial academic workspace for users with an academic institutional email. Individual commercial users need commercial-use permissions through a subscription or institution. The Individual Professional Workspace costs $1,000 a year. APIs support programmatic search and retrieval, subject to approved access and a token.