Free Google Scholar AlternativesAcademic Research Tools and other similar apps like Google Scholar

The best free alternative to Google Scholar is Semantic Scholar. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 25 alternatives to Google Scholar and many of them is free so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free alternatives to Google Scholar are WorldCat, ResearchGate, Scinapse and AMiner.

Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard
Google Scholar alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. Semantic Scholar (paywall free) is a science publication aggregator that collects citation-data from PubMed, CiteSeer, IEEE etc and rank each article according to the percieved number of impactful citations.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
    |
    1
  2. WorldCat icon
     21 likes

    WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • iPad
    • Android Tablet
     
  3. ResearchGate icon
     29 likes

    Enables users to upload and share scientific papers, connect with researchers globally, discover and follow research topics, access datasets, send direct messages, participate in discussions, track citation metrics, and explore academic job opportunities.

    40 ResearchGate alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
    • iPhone
     
  4. Scinapse icon
     14 likes

    Scinapse is a free search engine for academic papers. As of September 2018, it indexes more than 200 million articles from more than 40,000 journals.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
    |
    1
  5. AMiner icon
     4 likes

    ArnetMiner (AMiner) is designed to search and perform data mining operations against academic publications on the Internet, using social network analysis to identify connections between researchers, conferences, and publications.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  6. Connected Papers is a unique, visual tool to help researchers and applied scientists find and explore papers relevant to their field of work.

    22 Connected Papers alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
    |
    1
  7. BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. BASE provides more than 300 million documents from more than 10,000 content providers. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access).

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  8. Thomson Reuters Web of KnowledgeSM is a research platform that gives you access to objective content and powerful tools to search, track, measure and collaborate in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  9. Elicit icon
     8 likes

    Elicit is an AI-powered research assistant designed to help users efficiently discover, organize, and analyze academic papers and insights.

    25 Elicit alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  10. LENS icon
     3 likes

    The Lens serves almost all the patents and scholarly work in the world as a free, open and secure digital public good, with user privacy a paramount focus.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Online
     
  11. OA.mg icon
     3 likes

    OA.mg is a search engine for academic papers. Whether you are looking for a specific paper, or for research from a field, or all of an author’s works – OA.mg is the place to find it.

    17 OA.mg alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Online
     
12 of 33 Google Scholar alternatives