Connected Papers Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives

What is Connected Papers?

Connected Papers is a web tool that builds a visual graph of academic papers related to one paper you choose. Enter a title, DOI or link from arXiv, PubMed or Semantic Scholar, and it analyses tens of thousands of papers for citation overlap. It then draws the most similar ones as a map, with similar papers clustered together and larger nodes for more-cited work.

It was created in Israel by Alex Tarnavsky Eitan, Eddie Smolyansky and Itay Knaan Harpaz, started as a weekend side project and launched publicly in 2020. In 2021 it became an arXivLabs integration, so arXiv readers can open graphs from abstract pages. Premium accounts arrived in August 2022, adding unlimited graphs for paying users while the free tier kept a monthly limit.

What makes Connected Papers different is its similarity method. Papers are linked by shared references and shared citations rather than by direct citation alone, so the graph can surface relevant papers that never cite each other. It does one job, giving you a fast overview of a field, and it does it with a clean, focused interface rather than AI chat.

Key features of Connected Papers

• Similarity graphsBuild a graph of around a few dozen papers most similar to your chosen paper, clustered by citation overlap.
• Prior worksList the papers most often cited by the graph, which tend to be the foundational work in the area.
• Derivative worksList papers that cite many papers in the graph, which often include recent studies and surveys.
• Multi-origin graphsAdd a second or third origin paper to refine the graph toward the intersection of several topics.
• Visual cuesNode size reflects citation count and colour reflects publication year, so you can spot classic and recent work at a glance.
• Accounts and historySave papers and revisit past graphs from your account; arXiv abstract pages link straight to graphs.

Who is Connected Papers best for?

• Students starting a project who need a fast overview of the main papers around a known study.
• Researchers checking coverage because similarity graphs reveal related papers that keyword searches miss.
• Reviewers and editors who want to see quickly where a submitted paper sits in its field.
• Industry R&D teams who use the Business plan to scan the background of a technology.

Popular ways to use Connected Papers

• Exploring a new field: start from a well-known paper and see its closest neighbours.
• Finding foundations: use Prior works to locate the classic papers a field relies on.
• Finding the latest work: use Derivative works to find recent studies and reviews.
• Combining topics: add a second origin paper to explore where two lines of research meet.
• Checking a bibliography: see whether your reference list misses obviously related papers.

Connected Papers pricing (October 2026)

Connected Papers lists current Academic and Business prices on its pricing page, with cheaper rates for annual billing. The free plan has a monthly graph cap, so frequent users usually need a paid account.

Connected Papers pros and cons

How to get started with Connected Papers

1. Go to connectedpapers.com and paste a paper title, DOI or arXiv, PubMed or Semantic Scholar link.
2. Pick the right paper from the search results to build its graph.
3. Hover over nodes to read abstracts and see which papers cluster together.
4. Open Prior works and Derivative works to find foundational and recent papers.
5. Create a free account to save papers and keep your graph history.

Tips to get better results from Connected Papers

• Choose a well-cited origin paper for a richer graph.
• Use multi-origin graphs to steer results when your topic sits between two fields.
• Darker nodes are more recent, so scan colour to spot new work quickly.
• Export or save the papers you want, then manage them in your reference manager.

Connected Papers vs alternatives

ResearchRabbit is better for ongoing projects because it keeps collections, shares them and gives a larger free allowance, while Connected Papers is quicker for a single clear overview. Semantic Scholar is free and better for keyword search and alerts.

If you want AI to answer questions or extract findings, look at Elicit, Consensus or SciSpace. Undermind is the better pick when you need a thorough AI-driven search for papers that are hard to find. See all best AI research tools.

Our verdict: is Connected Papers worth it?

Connected Papers FAQs

Pricing and features change often. Details on this page were last reviewed in October 2026. Always confirm current plans on the official Connected Papers website.