Consensus
AI search engine that answers questions from peer-reviewed research papers.
- Verified facts
- 4 of 4
- Alternatives ranked
- 3
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- 0
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About Consensus
Consensus is a search engine for scientific literature. You type a research question in plain language and it searches academic papers, summarises what the relevant studies found and links each claim to the paper it came from, rather than drawing on the open web. It flags study designs and lets you filter results, so students, PhD candidates, clinicians and journalists can get a quick read on where the evidence points before reading the papers themselves. Beyond single answers it can draft longer literature overviews and keep searches in a workspace. It was founded in 2021 and is based in San Francisco. There is a free tier with a limited number of the more advanced AI searches, and paid individual, team and university plans that raise those limits. It runs in the browser; it is a starting point for a literature search, not a replacement for reading the studies or for a full database search in PubMed or Scopus.
Best for: Students, researchers and clinicians who want a fast, cited overview of what studies say.
Pros and cons
What works
- Answers are drawn from academic papers and linked to them
- Shows study details so you can judge the strength of evidence
- Free tier is enough for occasional questions
Why people leave
- Heavier use of the advanced AI search needs a paid plan
- Coverage depends on which papers it indexes, so it is not a full systematic-review tool
- Web only, with no desktop or offline use
Top Consensus alternatives
See all 3- 1
Elicit66.5Also searches papers with AI, with stronger tools for extracting data from many studies into a table.
- 2
Perplexity62.6Broader AI answer engine with an academic focus mode, useful when you also need web sources.
- 3
Zotero48.9Free reference manager to collect and cite the papers you find, instead of AI summaries.
Why people left Consensus
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Consensus: common questions
Is Consensus free?
Consensus has a free plan and paid plans.
Is Consensus open source?
No, Consensus is not open source.
What platforms does Consensus run on?
Consensus is available for Web.
What are the best alternatives to Consensus?
The highest-ranked Consensus alternatives right now are Elicit, Perplexity and Zotero. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.