Side by side

CiteSeerX vs The Lens

Both stand on research paper discovery tools. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

The Lens brings patent and scholarly discovery together, with saved searches, dashboards, and biological-sequence tools. Its free access options are for browsing or qualifying academic non-commercial work; individual commercial use requires permission.

Visit The Lens

The facts

	CiteSeerX	The Lens
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	Web	API, Web
Lowest paid plan	Not published	Individual Professional Workspace: $1,000 a year
Plans published	None	7
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	citeseerx.ist.psu.edu	lens.org
On research paper discovery tools	#26 of 33	#22 of 33

CiteSeerX: what it does well

The Lens: what it does well

Patent search includes biological and classification queries.
Scholarly records are linked to patents through citations.
PatSeq supports biological-sequence search and analysis.
Saved queries can trigger notifications for matching records.
Anonymous browsing does not require an email address.

What to know first

API access requires approval and a token.
Commercial use requires permission through a subscription or institution.
Professional workspace has no API or bulk data access by default.

Alternatives to CiteSeerX Alternatives to The Lens The whole list