Name: Connected Papers
Price: Freemium

What is Connected Papers?

Connected Papers builds an interactive graph of academic literature from a single seed paper. Its distinguishing method is similarity rather than direct citation: papers cluster by how much bibliographic ground they share, so the map surfaces closely related work that never cited your starting point and would be invisible in a normal citation search. It is widely used for orienting in an unfamiliar field and for spotting foundational work before a literature review. Two things to know. The free tier allows a limited number of graphs per month, with paid plans lifting that for heavy users, so intensive review periods will need an upgrade. And a graph is a discovery aid, not an assessment: it shows which papers sit near each other in the literature, not which are methodologically sound, so treat it as the first step before reading rather than a shortcut past it.

Key Features

Visual Similarity GraphPrior Works IdentificationDerivative Works MappingMulti-Origin GraphsPaper Clustering by RelatednessNode Hover Paper DetailsDOI and PMID SearchGraph HistorySaved Papers CollectionScholarly Database IntegrationInteractive Graph NavigationYear and Citation Count DisplayOne-Click Graph RebuildingUnlimited Graphs (paid)Group Admin PlanOpen Access Link DisplayField-Agnostic Coverage

How to Use Connected Papers

1Go to connectedpapers.com

2Enter a paper title, DOI, PMID, or keywords in the search bar

3Select the target paper and click Build a Graph

4Explore the visual graph of related papers, click nodes for details

5Save papers of interest and generate additional graphs from related nodes

✅ Best For

Researchers entering a new field who want to quickly understand the citation landscape around a foundational paper without spending days on database searches.
Applied scientists and R&D professionals who need to find relevant academic work outside their immediate specialty and want a visual, non-keyword approach to discovery.
Literature review teams who want to visually demonstrate the evolution of a research field to collaborators or in academic presentations.

❌ Not For

Researchers who need a multi-seed discovery tool with unlimited graphs on the free tier, as Connected Papers limits free users to 5 graphs per month and builds graphs from a single seed at a time (multi-origin available on paid plans).
Users requiring AI-generated summaries, annotation tools, or systematic review workflows alongside their paper discovery, as Connected Papers focuses exclusively on the visual mapping experience.

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to review Connected Papers!

Pricing

Free$0

✓5 graphs/month
✓all features included

Academic$5/mo (quarterly)

✓Unlimited graphs
✓all features
✓for academics and non-profits

Business$15/mo (quarterly)

✓Unlimited graphs
✓all features
✓for commercial use

Academic Group$5/seat/mo

✓Team access with admin seat management

Business Group$15/seat/mo

✓Commercial team access with admin controls

Prompts to Try

Build a graph from this paper on transformer language models

Find papers related to this seed paper on urban heat island mitigation

Show me the prior and derivative works for this foundational gene editing study

Use Cases

A climate scientist enters a landmark 2019 paper on methane flux as her seed and immediately sees a cluster of 15 related studies from soil science she had never encountered, reshaping her literature review in under an hour.

A startup CTO uses Connected Papers to map the research landscape around a core paper on distributed consensus algorithms, identifying three prior theoretical works his team's patent filing had overlooked.

A graduate student in economics uses the Multi-Origin graph feature with three seed papers on behavioral nudging to find a dense cluster of related work that becomes the foundation of his dissertation literature review.

A science educator builds a Connected Papers graph from a classic physics paper for her advanced class, using the visual timeline of derivative works to show students how scientific ideas build on each other over decades.

A researcher realizes a paper she has been repeatedly citing has a contrasting derivative work from 2023, discovered through Connected Papers, prompting her to revise an argument in her manuscript before peer review.

Alternatives to Connected Papers

ConsensusAI Research

Freemium

AI academic search engine that scans 200M+ peer-reviewed papers and shows the scientific consensus on any question.

Visit Website →

ElicitAI Research

Freemium

AI research assistant that searches 138M+ academic papers and automates literature reviews with sentence-level citations.

Visit Website →

ExplainpaperAI Research

Freemium

AI tool that explains confusing passages in research papers instantly, letting you highlight any text and get a plain-language explanation powered by GPT.

Visit Website →

LateralAI Research

Freemium

AI research workspace for literature reviews that organized PDFs, auto-generated findings tables, and ran semantic search across documents. Sunset June 2025.

Visit Website →