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Consensus vs ScienceOS

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. ScienceOS publishes a starting price ($8); Consensus does not. Both have a free tier.

ConsensusSearch over peer-reviewed papers with claim summariesScienceOSResearch assistant that answers from 230M papers with citations, maps citation networks and chats across up to 4,000 PDFs.

Side by side

FactConsensusScienceOS
CategoryAcademic Search & Literature ReviewAcademic Search & Literature Review
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at—$8 month
Public APINoNo
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb
CompanyConsensusscienceOS UG (haftungsbeschraenkt)
Launched2021—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Consensus

Useful when you want to know what a body of literature actually concludes rather than reading one paper at a time, but it orients you, it does not replace reading them.

Pros

  • Every answer is tied to specific papers with study design and sample size
  • Free tier is a standing plan rather than a time-limited trial
  • The yes-or-no consensus meter is a fast orientation device
  • Covers a very large index of peer-reviewed literature

Cons

  • Summaries can flatten real disagreement between studies into false consensus
  • Coverage skews to indexed English-language biomedical work
  • Pricing cannot be verified from outside; the site blocks automated access
  • Free allowance of the deeper analyses runs out quickly in real use

ScienceOS

Priced well below the usual academic-AI tier and unusually specific about its corpus - 230M papers, 800M snippets, 2.4B reference pairs, refreshed weekly. EU-only storage and a no-training commitment make it easier to clear with a university's data office than most rivals. The free tier is limited enough that serious use means paying.

Pros

  • Answers carry cited sources against a stated 230-million-paper index
  • Citation networks make backward and forward reference tracing practical
  • Chat spans up to 4,000 PDFs, with 1,000-file bulk import on Team
  • EU-only servers and an explicit no-training-on-user-data statement
  • Cheapest paid tier is around EUR 7 a month, well under most competitors

Cons

  • Figure extraction from PDFs is paywalled - the free tier is text only
  • The best model is unlimited only on the Team tier at six seats or more
  • No API for integrating results into other workflows
  • Euro pricing means dollar buyers absorb exchange-rate movement

Which one fits

Choose Consensus if you need

  • Checking whether a specific claim has support across published studies
  • Clinicians and students orienting quickly in an unfamiliar literature
  • Anyone who wants citations attached to every summarised claim

Choose ScienceOS if you need

  • Literature reviews where citation trails matter
  • Researchers who need EU data residency
  • Working across a large personal PDF library at once

More comparisons

All Consensus alternatives →All ScienceOS alternatives →Browse all Academic Search & Literature Review →