Elicit vs Litmaps

Elicit

Elicit's semantic search capability goes beyond keyword matching to understand the conceptual meaning behind research questions. When users enter a query like 'What interventions reduce anxiety in college students?', the system interprets the underlying research intent and searches across millions of academic papers to find semantically relevant results—even if papers don't contain the exact search terms. The AI understands synonyms, related concepts, and contextual relationships, surfacing papers that traditional keyword searches would miss. Results are ranked by relevance to the specific research question rather than just citation count or recency. Researchers discover more relevant papers faster, including studies they would have missed with traditional keyword-based searches.

✓ Researchers discover more relevant papers faster, including studies they would have missed with traditional keyword-based searches

Litmaps

Litmaps' Seed Map feature allows researchers to start with any paper they already know and automatically generate a comprehensive visualization of related literature. By entering a DOI, title, or selecting from search results, the platform's AI analyzes the seed paper's content, citations, and semantic fingerprint to identify and map dozens or hundreds of related papers. The resulting visualization shows papers as nodes positioned by similarity, with connecting lines indicating citation relationships. Users can adjust parameters like time range, similarity threshold, and citation depth to customize the scope of their exploration. This feature is particularly powerful for researchers entering a new field, as it transforms a single known paper into a gateway to understanding an entire research domain. Transforms a single known paper into a comprehensive map of an entire research field, eliminating hours of manual searching and ensuring no important related work is missed.

✓ Transforms a single known paper into a comprehensive map of an entire research field, eliminating hours of manual searching and ensuring no important related work is missed

Elicit

Elicit's data extraction engine automatically reads through research papers and pulls out structured information based on user-defined columns. Researchers can specify what data points they need—such as sample size, study duration, intervention type, primary outcomes, effect sizes, or limitations—and Elicit will extract this information from each paper in a systematic, tabular format. The system handles variations in how information is presented across different papers and journals, normalizing extracted data for easy comparison. Users can export extracted data to spreadsheets for further analysis or meta-analysis calculations. Transforms weeks of manual data extraction work into hours, enabling more comprehensive systematic reviews with larger paper sets.

✓ Transforms weeks of manual data extraction work into hours, enabling more comprehensive systematic reviews with larger paper sets

Litmaps

The Citation Network Analysis feature provides deep insights into how research papers reference and build upon each other over time. Litmaps visualizes both forward citations (papers that cite a given work) and backward citations (papers that a work references), creating a temporal view of how ideas propagate through the scientific community. The platform identifies highly-cited hub papers that serve as foundational works, as well as emerging papers gaining rapid citation momentum. Users can trace the evolution of specific concepts or methodologies through citation chains, understanding how research questions have been refined and answered over decades. The analysis also reveals citation clusters that may indicate distinct research communities or competing theoretical frameworks. Reveals the intellectual lineage and impact trajectory of research ideas, helping researchers identify foundational works and emerging influential papers in their field.

✓ Reveals the intellectual lineage and impact trajectory of research ideas, helping researchers identify foundational works and emerging influential papers in their field

Elicit

Beyond individual paper analysis, Elicit synthesizes findings across multiple papers to identify patterns, consensus views, and contradictions in the literature. The platform can generate summaries that aggregate key findings from dozens of papers, highlighting where studies agree, where they diverge, and what gaps exist in current research. This synthesis capability helps researchers quickly understand the state of knowledge on a topic without reading every paper in detail. The AI identifies methodological trends, common limitations, and emerging research directions across the literature. Enables researchers to rapidly develop comprehensive understanding of research landscapes and identify opportunities for novel contributions.

✓ Enables researchers to rapidly develop comprehensive understanding of research landscapes and identify opportunities for novel contributions

Litmaps

The Discover Feed is Litmaps' intelligent recommendation engine that continuously monitors academic databases for new publications relevant to a researcher's interests. Unlike generic alerts based on keywords, the Discover Feed uses the semantic understanding derived from a user's existing maps and saved papers to identify truly relevant new work, even if it uses different terminology. The feed learns from user interactions, becoming more accurate over time as researchers save, dismiss, or explore recommended papers. Notifications can be configured for immediate alerts on high-relevance papers or weekly digests summarizing new literature. This feature ensures researchers stay current without the cognitive burden of manually checking multiple journals and databases. Eliminates the fear of missing important new research by providing personalized, AI-curated updates that improve over time based on user behavior and preferences.

✓ Eliminates the fear of missing important new research by providing personalized, AI-curated updates that improve over time based on user behavior and preferences

Elicit

Elicit maintains rigorous academic standards by providing transparent citations and direct links to source documents for all extracted information. Every data point, quote, or finding extracted by the AI includes a citation to the specific paper and often the specific section where the information was found. Users can click through to verify any extracted information against the original source, ensuring accuracy and enabling proper academic citation. The platform also flags when information is uncertain or when papers contain conflicting claims. Maintains academic integrity and enables researchers to confidently cite findings while quickly verifying AI-extracted information.

✓ Maintains academic integrity and enables researchers to confidently cite findings while quickly verifying AI-extracted information

Litmaps

Collaborative Workspaces enable research teams to build shared knowledge bases and conduct literature reviews collectively. Team members can contribute papers to shared maps, add annotations and notes visible to colleagues, and discuss specific papers within the platform. The workspace maintains a complete history of contributions, allowing teams to see how their collective understanding has evolved. Permission controls enable different access levels for team leads, contributors, and viewers. Integration with institutional single sign-on systems simplifies team management for academic departments and research groups. The feature is particularly valuable for systematic reviews, grant applications, and multi-author publications where comprehensive literature coverage is essential. Transforms literature review from a solitary task into a collaborative effort, ensuring comprehensive coverage while distributing the workload across team members.

✓ Transforms literature review from a solitary task into a collaborative effort, ensuring comprehensive coverage while distributing the workload across team members

Elicit

Elicit supports flexible research workflows that adapt to different research methodologies and project requirements. Users can create custom extraction templates with specific columns tailored to their research questions, save and reuse search strategies across projects, and organize papers into collections for different aspects of their research. The platform supports iterative refinement of searches and extractions, allowing researchers to progressively narrow focus or expand scope as their understanding develops. Collaboration features enable research teams to share workflows and build on each other's work. Adapts to diverse research needs from quick literature scans to comprehensive systematic reviews requiring PRISMA-compliant documentation.

✓ Adapts to diverse research needs from quick literature scans to comprehensive systematic reviews requiring PRISMA-compliant documentation

Litmaps

Litmaps provides comprehensive export capabilities that integrate seamlessly with researchers' existing workflows and tools. Maps can be exported as high-resolution images suitable for publications, presentations, and grant applications, with customizable styling options for different contexts. Citation data exports in multiple formats including BibTeX, RIS, and EndNote, enabling direct import into reference management software like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote. The platform also offers API access for programmatic integration with institutional repositories, research information systems, and custom analysis pipelines. CSV exports of paper metadata support further analysis in spreadsheet applications or statistical software, while PDF exports create shareable reports summarizing map contents and key findings. Ensures that insights discovered in Litmaps flow seamlessly into publications, presentations, and other research tools without manual data re-entry or format conversion.

✓ Ensures that insights discovered in Litmaps flow seamlessly into publications, presentations, and other research tools without manual data re-entry or format conversion