SciSummary vs YouTLDR
SciSummary
scisummary.comYouTLDR
you-tldr.comSide by side
| Figure | SciSummary | YouTLDR |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $4/mo | $12/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 2 |
| Spec score · AI Summarizers | 8.7 (#5) | 7.1 (#34) |
| API | A REST API at scisummary.com/api supports bulk summarization with bearer-token authentication. | The transcript API is in private beta with manually approved access and returns timestamped transcript data as JSON. |
| Audience | SciSummary describes its intended users as scientists, researchers, and students seeking to speed up academic reading. | The site describes YouTLDR as built for creators, students, and researchers who need verifiable answers from videos. |
| Browser extension | The Chrome extension lets users right-click a PDF and add it to a SciSummary library folder. | The Chrome extension adds transcripts, summaries, timeline, and chat in a YouTube side panel; it is free to install, but processing requires Pro. |
| Purpose | SciSummary uses AI to help people understand scientific and research papers through summaries, analysis, and insights. | YouTLDR turns YouTube videos into readable transcripts, AI summaries, and translations, and lets users ask questions about videos. |
| Support | SciSummary lists [email protected] and says it aims to answer support email within one business day. | The contact page says messages are not handled by a chatbot or live customer support service and asks users to contact the team about legitimate Pro-plan questions or concerns. |
Plans
SciSummary
- Bulk Summarization APIFree
- Free TrialFree
- Free TrialFree
- StudentFree
- Student PlanFree
- Pro (Monthly)$7 a month
- Pro Plan$48 a year
- Pro (Yearly)$48 a year
In their own words
SciSummary
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.