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SemanticScholar VS Unpaywall

Compare SemanticScholar VS Unpaywall and see what are their differences

SemanticScholar logo SemanticScholar

An academic search engine that utilizes artificial intelligence methods to provide highly relevant results and novel tools to filter them with ease.

Unpaywall logo Unpaywall

Legally read research papers behind paywalls.
  • SemanticScholar Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-14
  • Unpaywall Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-16

SemanticScholar features and specs

  • Comprehensive Database
    Semantic Scholar has a vast database of scholarly articles, offering users access to a wide range of scientific papers across numerous disciplines.
  • Advanced AI Tools
    The platform uses artificial intelligence to help users find relevant research quickly and efficiently, offering features like citation graph analysis and influential citation identification.
  • Free Access
    Semantic Scholar provides free access to its search engine and research paper database, making it accessible to a broad audience without subscription fees.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The interface of Semantic Scholar is designed to be intuitive and easy to navigate, allowing users to search and access articles with minimal friction.
  • Related Paper Recommendations
    Semantic Scholar suggests related papers based on the user's search queries and interests, potentially uncovering new and relevant research.

Possible disadvantages of SemanticScholar

  • Limited Full-Text Access
    While Semantic Scholar provides access to many abstracts and citations, full-text access to papers often requires going to external sources or having specific journal subscriptions.
  • Data Quality and Accuracy
    As with any large database, there are occasional inaccuracies in metadata and citation counts, which can affect reliability.
  • Discipline Coverage Imbalance
    Some fields may be better represented than others on Semantic Scholar, potentially limiting effectiveness for researchers in underrepresented disciplines.
  • Dependency on AI Algorithms
    The reliance on AI and machine learning algorithms, while generally beneficial, can sometimes lead to unintended biases or filtering of information.

Unpaywall features and specs

  • Free Access
    Unpaywall provides a legal and free method to access millions of research papers, enabling users who may not have subscriptions to paywalled journals to benefit from scientific knowledge.
  • Large Database
    With a repository of millions of articles, Unpaywall offers a broad range of papers across various fields, increasing the likelihood of finding accessible versions of desired research.
  • Browser Integration
    Unpaywall offers a browser extension that seamlessly integrates with Chrome and Firefox, allowing users to easily access full-text articles without leaving their workflow.
  • Legal and Ethical
    Unpaywall sources its articles from legal repositories, ensuring that access to content is ethical and respects copyright laws.
  • Support for Open Access
    By promoting access to open access articles, Unpaywall supports the broader open access movement, which aims to make scientific research more readily available to everyone.

Possible disadvantages of Unpaywall

  • Inconsistent Availability
    Not all articles have open access versions available, so users may not always find the exact paper they are looking for via Unpaywall.
  • Quality Variation
    The availability of different versions of the articles might lead to variations in quality, such as preprints or author manuscripts, which might not be peer-reviewed.
  • Dependency on Publisher Policies
    The availability of free articles depends heavily on individual publisher policies regarding open access, which can vary widely and affect what content is accessible.
  • Limited to Research Papers
    Unpaywall primarily focuses on research articles, so other types of academic content like book chapters or conference proceedings may not be available.
  • Requires Internet Connection
    Users need an active internet connection to use Unpaywall, which could be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity.

SemanticScholar videos

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Unpaywall videos

How to Access Research Articles for FREE with Unpaywall

More videos:

  • Review - Must-Have Browser Extensions: Unpaywall + LibKeyNomad | Your Librarian Friend
  • Review - Testing Unpaywall

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to SemanticScholar and Unpaywall)
Research Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100
Education
55 55%
45% 45
Information Organization
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare SemanticScholar and Unpaywall

SemanticScholar Reviews

We have no reviews of SemanticScholar yet.
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Unpaywall Reviews

14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free – 2024
GetTheResearch.org is an Artificial Intelligence(AI) powered search engine for search and understand scientific articles for researchers and scientists. It was developed as a part of the Unpaywall project. Unpaywall is a database of 23,329,737 free scholarly Open Access(OA) articles from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Unpaywall seems to be a lot more popular than SemanticScholar. While we know about 44 links to Unpaywall, we've tracked only 3 mentions of SemanticScholar. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

SemanticScholar mentions (3)

  • AI tools for literature review
    Hi everyone, I have been playing with a few new AI tools for literature reviews that you might like: - Seamless https://seaml.es/ - Semantic Scholar https://semanticscholar.org - Epsilon https://epsilon.ai/ I hope you find them useful. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Is there a SciHub of Databases?
    I rely mostly on Microsoft Academic Search. I find an article I need and then usually Google the exact title followed by filetype:pdf. For example: "Toward creating a fairer ranking in search engine results" filetype:pdf. Other services that are helpful from a discovery standpoint include ResearchGate, Academia.edu, and semanticscholar.org. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • [N] Semantic Scholar introduces Semantic Reader, An AI-Powered Augmented Scientific Reading Application
    Hello! Check out our Research Feeds beta on semanticscholar.org, based in part on the arxiv-sanity.com work. From any paper you can select "Research Feed" to start a feed. Source: almost 4 years ago

Unpaywall mentions (44)

  • First time a vacuum was ever created in a laboratory
    You might also find this interesting: https://unpaywall.org/. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Black holes eat faster than previously expected
    > can you detail what the possible issue is? Why? Are you in a position to help everyone? (As you probably guessed while reading the comment you replied to, I don't really need help; more on that below). "Occasional" is not universal; as you aren't getting the problem in a here-and-now sense you can probably play around with the "here" part by using Tor Browser to see if you can get to the article via the link... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • I am fuckin tired of every other short or video of being about another useless gpt promt or extension. Please give me better trusted resources
    There are many of course the problem is that the ai hallucination problem is still a huge issue. For instance, getting all of https://unpaywall.org/ or something similar into an LLM would be a boon for scientists, but... If you can't trust what it is saying you will end up going back to pull the source anyway. The analysis it provides would probably be helpful though. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Can the light from my grow light pass through The Gnat Preventive Chamber™ to the plants inside?
    For problem 1. I can recommend this browser extension: https://unpaywall.org/ it basically redirects you to a legally available free version of any article you are looking at, if it can find one. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Got a pub and can’t even view the full text article
    Try this: https://unpaywall.org, it’s legal. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing SemanticScholar and Unpaywall, you can also consider the following products

Google Scholar - Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly...

SCI-HUB - It provides mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers

ResearchGate - Access scientific knowledge, and make your research visible

arXiv - arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles.

Study Flo - Enhance your academic research with AI-powered tools. Streamline your research process with Study Flo.

Scopus - Scopus is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles.