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AI Text Summarizer vs Scholarcy

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Both have a free tier. Only Scholarcy ships a public API.

AI Text SummarizerNo-signup summarizer for pasted text or uploaded documents up to 30 MB, with follow-up questionsScholarcyBreaks research papers into summary flashcards with extracted references

Side by side

FactAI Text SummarizerScholarcy
CategorySummarizationPaper Reading & Summarization
Pricing modelFreeFreemium
Public APINoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, Chrome Ext, API
CompanyLTS Inc.Texthelp
Launched—2018
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

AI Text Summarizer

The appeal is the absence of friction: paste or drop a file, choose a format and length, get a summary, ask a follow-up, close the tab. A 30 MB upload ceiling and 90-plus languages put it ahead of most free summarizers, and unlike them it does not stop after one go. The trade-off is that nothing persists — no account means no history, no library, no way back to yesterday's summary.

Pros

  • No account, email or card required, and no paywall after the first result
  • Accepts PDF, DOCX, TXT, PPTX, EPUB and FB2 up to 30 MB
  • Paragraph or bullet output at three length settings, plus follow-up questions
  • Named operator with a jurisdiction — LTS Inc., Nicosia, Cyprus — which most free tools skip

Cons

  • Nothing is saved between sessions
  • No API, no batch mode and no integrations
  • Free with no stated funding model, so longevity is unclear

Scholarcy

The strongest option when you need a consistent structured breakdown of a specific paper you already have. It is a summariser, not a discovery engine, so it does not replace Elicit or Consensus for finding what to read.

Pros

  • Flashcard structure (claims, methods, limitations) is consistent enough to compare papers side by side
  • Citation links resolve to open-access copies, saving a separate hunt
  • Exports to Word, Excel and reference managers rather than trapping output in the app

Cons

  • Extraction quality drops on badly formatted or scanned PDFs
  • Free tier's roughly 10 summaries a month runs out within one review session
  • Site is behind aggressive bot protection, which makes automated or scripted use awkward

Which one fits

Choose AI Text Summarizer if you need

  • One-off summaries of a long PDF or article without signing up
  • Reading a document in a language you do not work in
  • Pulling bullet points out of a report before a meeting

Choose Scholarcy if you need

  • Postgraduates screening a pile of PDFs before deciding what to read fully
  • Building a literature matrix across a set of papers
  • Librarians and study-skills teams wanting an institutional licence

More comparisons

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