Connected Papers creates a visual graph of research papers related to any starting paper, based on co-citation similarity. Researchers use it to quickly map a field, find foundational papers they may have missed and see how a topic's literature clusters.
Best for
Researchers who want to explore and map a field of literature visually.
Pricing
Ongoing free tier available, no trial required. Paid plans start at $3/mo.
Pros
- Visual graph format makes it genuinely faster to map a research field than reading citation lists
- Helps surface foundational papers you might otherwise miss
- Low starting price for the paid tier
Cons
- Best suited to exploring citation relationships — it doesn't summarize or explain paper content itself
- Some advanced features require a paid plan
Tags
researchpapersvisualisationliterature-reviewacademic
Frequently asked questions
Does Connected Papers explain what's in each paper, or just show connections?
It's focused on visualizing co-citation relationships between papers to help you map a field — for reading and understanding individual paper content, you'd still read the papers or use a tool like Elicit or Scite.