Skip to content
category · Research

Research software after AI

15 tools in this category. 1 are rated killed and 7 survived — together the non-survivors add up to $117 a month.

15
tools tracked
1
killed
7
survived
$117
$/mo at risk

most-voted in Research

R
ResearchRabbit
science Research
NOT REALLY

Free, graph-based, and complementary to research agents.

why

OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.

OpenAI · 2025-02 free
S
SciSpace
science Research
KINDA

Chat-with-PDF for papers, in the year that became a default feature.

why

ChatGPT and NotebookLM cover the headline feature free, so the $20/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.

OpenAI · 2025-02 $20/mo
M
Mendeley
science Research
KINDA

A reference manager losing to a free one, with AI as the accelerant.

why

Zotero covers the headline feature free, so the $5/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.

OpenAI · 2024-05 $5/mo
E
EndNote
science Research
KINDA

The institutional reference manager, undercut by free.

why

Zotero and ChatGPT cover the headline feature free, so the $21/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.

OpenAI · 2024-05 $21/mo
P
Paperpal
science Research
KINDA

Academic language editing, mostly commoditised.

why

ChatGPT and Claude cover the headline feature free, so the $19/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.

OpenAI · 2024-05 $19/mo
G
GummySearch
science Research
KINDA

Reddit audience research — find pain points people actually post about.

why

ChatGPT covers the headline feature free, so the $29/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.

OpenAI · 2025-04 $29/mo

every Research tool in the archive

search

How a verdict is decided →

The Death List

15 of 15
S
Scholarcy
scienceResearch· $10
YES
Anthropic · 2024-06 · Claude summarizes full research papers and extracts key findings for free
Claude and ChatGPT now cover the same core job on a free tier, so the $10/mo is optional.
G
GummySearch
scienceResearch· $29
KINDA
OpenAI · 2025-04 · ChatGPT and Grok can search social platforms directly now
ChatGPT covers the headline feature free, so the $29/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
E
EndNote
scienceResearch· $21
KINDA
OpenAI · 2024-05 · Free reference management plus AI citation formatting
Zotero and ChatGPT cover the headline feature free, so the $21/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
S
SciSpace
scienceResearch· $20
KINDA
OpenAI · 2025-02 · Deep research agents read and synthesise papers free
ChatGPT and NotebookLM cover the headline feature free, so the $20/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
P
Paperpal
scienceResearch· $19
KINDA
OpenAI · 2024-05 · Academic writing assistance from general models
ChatGPT and Claude cover the headline feature free, so the $19/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
L
Litmaps
scienceResearch· $10
KINDA
OpenAI · 2025-04 · Deep research agents assembling and explaining a field's key papers in one pass
Connected Papers and Research Rabbit cover the headline feature free, so the $10/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
M
Mendeley
scienceResearch· $5
KINDA
OpenAI · 2024-05 · AI reading tools plus free reference managers
Zotero covers the headline feature free, so the $5/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
P
Paperpile
scienceResearch· $3
KINDA
Google · 2025-01 · Gemini in Google Docs drafting and referencing from uploaded papers
Zotero and Mendeley cover the headline feature free, so the $3/mo is now paying for the workflow around it.
U
Undermind
scienceResearch· $20
NOT REALLY
OpenAI · 2025-03 · ChatGPT deep research doing multi-step literature searches for the same subscription
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one still earns its $20/mo.
C
Connected Papers
scienceResearch· $6
NOT REALLY
Anthropic · 2024-06 · Chat assistants suggest related literature from a prompt
Anthropic's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one still earns its $6/mo.
R
ResearchRabbit
scienceResearch· free
NOT REALLY
OpenAI · 2025-02 · Citation graphs are structured data, not generated text
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
Z
Zotero
scienceResearch· free
NOT REALLY
Google · 2024-11 · NotebookLM and chat assistants summarising sources without any library step
Google's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
L
LMArena
scienceResearch· free
NOT REALLY
OpenAI · 2025-08 · Labs publishing their own benchmark results and independent evaluation suites multiplying
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
A
Artificial Analysis
scienceResearch· free
NOT REALLY
OpenAI · 2025-08 · Model providers publishing their own comparison pages and pricing calculators
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
N
NotebookLM
scienceResearch· free
NOT REALLY
Google · 2024-09 · It is the thing doing the killing
Google's version overlaps, but does not finish the research job, so this one is still worth keeping open.