ScienceOpen
ScienceOpen: Free scholarly search with recommendations, citation connections, collections, and impact metrics. Ranked #13 of 33 in Research Paper Discovery Tools by our editors (8.2/10); pricing: Free plan; best for article discovery with recommendations and impact metrics.
At a glance
- Editor score8.2 / 10
- PricingFree plan
- Best forArticle discovery with recommendations and impact metrics
- Free planYes
- Paid fromNone
- Citation graphYes
- Facts checked5 Oct 2026
Where it wins
- Explore article connections through citations, authors, keywords, and journals
- Recommend articles and organize research in private or public collections
- Export citation records as BibTeX, EndNote, or RIS
Where it doesn't
- Publishing work and several researcher features require free membership
- Discovery is focused on scholarly content rather than general web search
- Impact tracking centers on citation, usage, and Altmetric metrics
Our verdict on ScienceOpen
ScienceOpen is a web-based platform for searching and discovering scholarly research. Researchers and others exploring publications can search content, authors, and collections without membership. Its discovery experience extends beyond a list of results: article records connect through citations, authors, keywords, and journals, helping readers follow relationships across scholarly work. Recommendations and impact metrics add further ways to assess and explore articles, while citation exports support moving records into other research workflows.
Search results can be filtered and sorted by Altmetric score, and users can inspect citation, usage, and Altmetric impact metrics. ScienceOpen also supports recommendations, comments, and post-publication peer reviews, so the platform includes ways to add context to published work as well as find it. Citation records can be exported in BibTeX, EndNote, or RIS formats. ORCID is the listed integration: a free membership lets researchers connect an ORCID record and import or showcase a research record. These features make ScienceOpen more suited to scholarly discovery and research organization than to broad, general-purpose search.
Search and exploration are freely accessible, while a free membership enables researchers to publish work, connect ORCID, organize collections, and track impact. Collections can be private or public. This distinction matters for readers who only need to find papers: they can search without joining, while researchers seeking to maintain a record or curate collections will need an account. Choose ScienceOpen if article recommendations, citation relationships, collections, or impact indicators are useful to your research process. It is less suited to people looking for discovery outside scholarly publications or who need a wider range of listed integrations.
Your product? Our editors can test ScienceOpen in depth and publish a review, labelled as paid · from $99/mo →
ScienceOpen pricing
ScienceOpen fact sheet
| Free plan | Yes |
|---|---|
| Paid from | None |
| Citation graph | Yes |
| Semantic search | Not verified |
| Related-paper suggestions | Yes |
| Literature mapping | Not verified |
| Natural-language search | Not verified |
| Export formats | BibTeX, EndNote, RIS |
| Deployment | Cloud |
| Platforms | Web |
| Built for | Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise (editorial estimate) |
| Integrations | 1 integrations: ORCID |
| Pricing | Free plan |
| Website | scienceopen.com |
| Facts checked | 5 Oct 2026 |
ScienceOpen integrations
ScienceOpen lists 1 integrations on its own site.
- ORCID
Alternatives to ScienceOpen
- Google ScholarA free scholarly search tool with citation tracking, alerts, and a personal library.9.4
- Semantic ScholarA free research discovery tool that combines filtered search, paper insights, recommendations, and APIs.9.3
- CORESearch multidisciplinary research and access open full texts, API data, and bulk datasets.9.2
See all ScienceOpen alternatives →
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The editor score above is our own research. What this page doesn't have yet is a reader's view — what you used ScienceOpen for, what worked and what didn't. No stars are seeded and no review is paid for; an editor reads every one before it appears.
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Featured on iTechGuides
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Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
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