Connected Papers
Visual graphs of related papers from a single seed — 5 free graphs a month.
About
Connected Papers generates a visual graph of papers related to a single seed paper, using co-citation and bibliographic coupling (node size = citations, color = recency, distance = relatedness). Prior-works and derivative-works views help trace a field's development. Usable without logging in.
Pricing: free 5 graphs/month (all features); Academic ~$6/mo annual for unlimited; Business ~$20/mo. Single-paper seed is the main limitation vs collection-based tools. Particularly strong in CS/engineering.
What it can do
- Single-seed visual paper graphs
- Prior vs derivative works analysis
- Co-citation similarity (not just direct citations)
- No login required for free tier
- Export to reference managers
Setup
- Go to connectedpapers.com (no login needed for free graphs).
- Search a paper by title, DOI, or URL.
- Explore the graph; check Prior and Derivative works lists.
- Export interesting papers to Zotero/Mendeley.
Prerequisites
A web browser; no account needed for the free tier.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 6/10
Scored 6/10 (metrics tier). Simple, well-understood tool with a genuinely free entry point, but a narrow feature set (single-seed graphs) and regional pricing variance. Closed SaaS. Metrics tier.
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
- 4.2/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · provider-tier estimate — thinner evidence (no public adoption metric)
- · well-known in CS; free tier capped — provider-tier estimate
- · no release date — neutral maintenance score
- · manual review: 5 free graphs/mo verified; single-paper seed limitation; pricing varies by region; license: closed SaaS
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.