alphaXiv vs Scite

alphaXiv

RAG

Scite

RAG

Tagline

alphaXiv

AI reading layer over arXiv with grounded Q&A, auto-summaries, and line-by-line discussion on every preprint.

Scite

AI research assistant that grades citations as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning across 1.6B citation statements.

Pricing

alphaXiv

Free· Free, no signup required

Scite

Freemium· Basic: $20 · Pro: $50 · Team: $50 · Enterprise: Contact us

Lowest paid tier

alphaXiv

—

Scite

$20 · Basic

captured 2026-08-02

Free trial

alphaXiv

Yes

Scite

Yes

API

alphaXiv

Not listed

Scite

Yes

Platforms

alphaXiv

apichrome-extension

Scite

api

GitHub stars

alphaXiv

26

checked 2026-09-29

Scite

—

Last GitHub push

alphaXiv

2025-10-13

Scite

—

First commit

alphaXiv

2025-10

Scite

—

Company

alphaXiv

—

Scite

Research Solutions

Model used

alphaXiv

Multi-model

Scite

Multi-model

Best for

alphaXiv

Pick alphaXiv if you read arXiv preprints daily and want grounded AI Q&A and summaries without leaving the paper.

Scite

Pick Scite if you do serious literature reviews and want to see, at a glance, whether a cited claim is actually supported or contradicted downstream.

Not for

alphaXiv

Skip it if you need to query non-arXiv literature, want an API for programmatic ingestion, or require a self-hostable stack.

Scite

Skip it if you need a general-purpose AI assistant or are not working with peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Editorial score

alphaXiv

7.0 / 10

Scite

8.2 / 10

Use cases

alphaXiv

paper-qaliterature-reviewarxiv-summariesresearch-discussion

Scite

literature-reviewcitation-analysisacademic-researchsystematic-reviewreference-checking

Pros

alphaXiv

• Zero-friction: swap arxiv.org for alphaxiv.org in any URL
• Ask AI is grounded in paper text with line-level citations
• Auto blog-style summaries help triage papers fast
• Line-by-line comments enable threaded discussion on passages
• Completely free with no account required

Scite

• Smart Citations label every reference as supporting, contrasting, or mentioning with context
• AI Assistant answers are grounded in published papers, not open-web prose
• MCP server plus Zotero, ChatGPT, and Claude integrations
• Dashboards and alerts for tracking papers, authors, and topics over time
• Public API for teams building on top of the citation graph

Cons

alphaXiv

• Closed-source with no documented public API
• Coverage limited to arXiv preprints only
• Discussion activity is sparse outside trending papers

Scite

• Useful mostly for scholarly work; not a general writing or coding tool
• Full features gated behind a paid plan after a short trial
• Coverage and full-text depth depend on publisher partnerships
• Classifications are model-generated and occasionally need human sanity-checking

Website

alphaXiv

www.alphaxiv.org

Scite

scite.ai

Editorial score: rule-based, 0–10, from AI-assisted profile inputs (see /methodology) — not a user rating; “—” means unscored. “Not listed” means we have no record of it, not that it is absent. GitHub figures and prices carry the date they were checked or captured; prices are shown as published, unconverted.