Kvasir

Kvasir combines a legal-research application with REST and MCP access for source-grounded work in German, Austrian, Swiss, and EU law. It suits lawyers checking authorities and developers connecting legal sources to AI tools. Its strongest case is citation-aware primary-source research; readers needing substantive case analysis or a ready-to-buy paid tier should look elsewhere.

Overview

Kvasir covers nine jurisdictions and reports more than 450,000 norms and more than 450,000 court decisions, with daily refreshes. That combination gives researchers a broad, current base across statutes, regulations, and case law. Authority search and source citations are supported, while case analysis is not, so the product is better at locating and validating material than explaining the merits of a particular case.

The web app and API make Kvasir usable both as a direct research tool and as infrastructure inside another workflow. The provider, kvasir.legal GbR, is based in Bremen, Germany.

Key features

• Search and legal objects: Legal search, citation resolution, legal objects, and citation relations help users find authorities and follow connections between them. Batch verification is useful when checking a set of references rather than reviewing citations individually.
• Quotation and draft verification: Kvasir can establish whether citations exist and compare draft quotations with canonical legal wording. That is a practical safeguard for briefs, memos, and AI-generated text, although full draft text is sent only through check_draft, which requires a separately granted legal.check scope.
• API and assistant integrations: The MCP endpoint has documented setup for ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Perplexity, and Mistral Le Chat. Developer documentation also covers Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and VS Code, with plain REST access for systems that do not use MCP.
• Testing allowances: A keyless sandbox permits 20 requests per day. The MCP demo allows 10 tool calls per day and per IP, enough for a small evaluation but not sustained team usage.
• Privacy and hosting: Request content is processed in memory rather than stored, while aggregate usage counters are retained. Corpus data, account records, and counters are hosted in Railway's EU region. Kvasir does not currently hold SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 certification; a CAIQ-Lite questionnaire is available on request.

Pricing

Hobby — free, Free forever: The free plan includes the full app, an API key, MCP access, and 2,000 sips per month. It is a strong fit for an individual lawyer, student, or developer prototyping a citation workflow. The monthly sip ceiling is the main constraint for recurring or automated workloads.

Pro — €12 a month: This planned tier raises the allowance to 5,000 sips per month, bills overflow per sip, and keeps a spend limit on by default. Billing is coming, so it is not a currently usable upgrade. When offered, it should suit a regular solo user who needs more headroom but not firm-wide procurement.

Enterprise — custom pricing: Negotiated firm-wide volume comes with a data-processing agreement, invoicing, agreed terms, and prioritized requests for coverage and endpoints. This is the appropriate route for organizations that need contractual arrangements and higher-volume access rather than a self-serve quota.

Default API keys are limited to 120 requests per minute and 50,000 per month. Those limits matter independently of the plan's sip allowance when an integration makes frequent calls.

Platforms

Kvasir is available on the web and through APIs. REST suits conventional application integrations, while MCP supports the documented chat assistants and developer clients. The keyless sandbox and MCP demo provide limited trials without committing to an account.

Who it's for

Choose Kvasir if you work with German, Austrian, Swiss, or EU primary law and need references that can be resolved or checked programmatically. It is particularly relevant to legal teams reviewing AI-assisted drafts and developers building retrieval or citation validation into products. It is less suitable for readers whose priority is interpretive case analysis, broad global coverage, or a paid plan they can activate immediately.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Large, daily refreshed corpus spanning norms and court decisions across nine jurisdictions.
• Combines a full research app with REST, MCP, and documented developer clients.
• Verifies citations and checks quotations against canonical wording, including batch workflows.
• Free access includes the app, API key, MCP, and 2,000 monthly sips.
• In-memory request handling and EU-region hosting support privacy-conscious deployments.

Cons

• No case-analysis feature, limiting usefulness when retrieval is not enough.
• Draft checking requires the separately granted legal.check permission and transmits the full draft.
• The 2,000-sip free allowance and API rate and monthly caps can constrain automation.
• The Pro plan is not yet available, and overflow will be billed per sip.
• No SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001 certification is currently held.

Alternatives

AI Legal Research Software is the broader starting point when you want to compare this category rather than commit to Kvasir's jurisdiction-focused approach.

Align Research is worth considering for a web-only litigation workflow with a freemium model and three free research jobs per month.

CaseRead is the better direction if API and web access should include document analysis, projects, storage, and daily research-message limits.

Clauselex fits users seeking web-based quick and deep research plus drafting and uploads under INR-denominated plans.

Curia is an alternative for cited case research and document analysis through a credit-based web service.

IURIX suits professionals looking for a paid service with a free test phase, subject to its closed testing conditions.

Jureo is another option for a three-month introductory access period followed by tailored pricing.

LawGlance is the alternative to examine when self-hosting and an open-source project are priorities.

Legalcode is preferable when a free API quota and non-patent sources across 40 jurisdictions matter more than Kvasir's narrower European focus.

Verdict

Kvasir is a compelling choice for lawyers and builders who need searchable European primary law plus machine-checkable citations and quotations. Its generous free starting point and broad API integration are the main reasons to choose it. Look elsewhere if you need case interpretation, a currently purchasable paid tier, or formal security certifications.