alphaXiv
Verified Oct 15, 2026 ActiveLets researchers search and discuss arXiv papers, with answers grounded in the paper text rather than free-form summaries.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- Paid options from
- $8/mo
- Billing
- Monthly
Free plan covers paper chat on preset models with strict usage limits. alphaXiv Go is $8 a month ($5 for verified academic emails) with higher limits on open-source models; Pro is $20 a month for any model and longer context, and a 5x-usage Pro tier is $100 a month.
Use tool ↗About alphaXiv
alphaXiv is a research discovery site built on top of arXiv by a team of Stanford graduates who started it in 2024 and later raised seed funding. It lets users follow new papers, see which researchers and organizations are active in an area, comment directly on paper sections, and chat with any arXiv paper through an assistant whose answers cite the passages they come from. An MCP server, API keys and a Chrome extension bring the same search into other tools. Reading and paper chat are free; paid Go and Pro subscriptions raise assistant usage limits and unlock a choice of frontier models.
- Platforms
- Web · API · Chrome extension
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 15, 2026
Verified sources
- Subscription settings plans: Free (preset models, strict limits), alphaXiv Go $8/mo ($5/mo for student researchers), alphaXiv Pro $20/mo, Pro 5x usage $100/mo (15 October 2026)alphaxiv.org ↗
- Home page: follow research, researchers and organizations with grounded literature review; links to MCP server docs and a Chrome Web Store extension (15 October 2026)alphaxiv.org ↗
Is alphaXiv legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Domain registered
- Aug 10, 2023 (3 years ago)Registry record (RDAP), registrar Amazon Registrar, Inc., looked up Sep 6, 2026
- TLS certificate
- Issued by Google Trust Services, valid until Nov 19, 2026Seen in our own connection to the site on Oct 15, 2026
- Last checked
- Oct 15, 2026The site answered
- On the market since
- 2024The vendor's own material, read by us
- Operated by
- alphaXiv, United StatesOur research, card verified Oct 15, 2026
Pros & cons of alphaXiv
alphaXiv is useful for staying on top of a fast-moving research area because it ties discussion and search directly to arXiv papers instead of sending you to a separate forum. Its literature-review answers are grounded in citations you can click through to verify, which matters more here than in a general chatbot, but coverage is limited to what's on arXiv and heavier assistant use now sits behind paid Go and Pro plans.
Pros
- Grounds generated answers in the actual paper text with citations
- Surfaces researcher and organization activity around a topic, not just papers
- Offers an MCP server and a Chrome extension for pulling search into other tools
- Student discount on the Go plan for recognised academic emails
Cons
- Limited to arXiv's corpus, so it misses paywalled or non-arXiv work
- Free assistant use runs on preset models with strict limits
- Plan prices appear only inside the signed-in subscription settings, not on a public pricing page
Best for
- ML and AI researchers tracking new arXiv papers
- Anyone writing a literature review who wants citations tied to source passages
- Finding who else is working on a specific research topic
Not for
- Research outside arXiv's coverage, which is most non-STEM fields
- Heavy assistant users who want unlimited chat without a subscription
Watch out: Choosing frontier models such as Claude or GPT in the assistant requires Pro at $20 a month; Go only raises limits on open-source models.
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