ResearchRabbit
Collection-based literature discovery with visual citation networks — freemium since 2026.
About
ResearchRabbit ('Spotify for papers') learns from collections of seed papers and continuously recommends related work — similar, earlier, and later papers — through interactive citation-network visualizations, with Zotero import. Used by 1M+ researchers (provider-claimed) at major institutions.
Pricing change to note: long free, it moved to freemium in 2026 — free tier now capped at 50 seed articles; RR+ is ~$10/mo annual ($12.50 monthly) for 300 seeds, multiple projects, and Signals alerts. Older reviews still describe it as fully free; that is stale.
What it can do
- Collection-based paper recommendations
- Interactive citation-network and timeline views
- Author collaboration networks
- Zotero import integration
- New-paper alerts (Signals, RR+)
Setup
- Create a free account at researchrabbit.ai.
- Add seed papers to a collection (or import from Zotero).
- Explore the network/timeline views and follow recommendations.
- Upgrade to RR+ (~$10/mo annual) if you exceed 50 seeds.
Prerequisites
A web browser; free account.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 6/10
Scored 6/10 (metrics tier). Beloved discovery tool with real institutional penetration, but the 2026 freemium shift (50-seed cap) materially changed the value proposition and much of the glowing coverage predates it. Closed SaaS. Metrics tier with the pricing-change caveat front and center.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 5.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.5/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · provider-tier estimate — thinner evidence (no public adoption metric)
- · 1M+ researchers claimed (provider-claimed); moved to freemium 2026 — provider-tier estimate
- · no release date — neutral maintenance score
- · manual review: collection-based discovery verified; free tier now capped at 50 seeds (was unlimited); Zotero integration; license: closed SaaS (freemium since 2026)
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.