Loading page
Feature checklists make every tool look equivalent. This table leads with the three things that actually differ — what it costs you before it works, whether your files leave your device, and where the free version stops.
| Google Scholarscholar.google.com | arXivarxiv.org | PubMedpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | archive.todayarchive.ph | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it does | Searches academic papers and shows who has cited each one since | Free preprints in physics, maths, computer science and quantitative biology | The index of record for biomedical literature, run by the US National Library of Medicine | Freezes one page on demand into a snapshot that keeps working when it moves |
| What it costs you | No sign-upWorks the moment the page loads. No account, no email, no trial. | No sign-upWorks the moment the page loads. No account, no email, no trial. | No sign-upWorks the moment the page loads. No account, no email, no trial. | No sign-upWorks the moment the page loads. No account, no email, no trial. |
| Your files | Runs on their server | Runs on their server | Runs on their server | Runs on their server |
| Where it stops | No usable filters beyond date and no bulk export, and a large share of results still land on a publisher paywall. | Preprints are moderated but not peer reviewed — treat a result here as a claim, not a finding. | Most records are abstracts only — full text often sits behind the publisher unless a PubMed Central copy exists. | It archives one page at a time with no crawl, the operator is anonymous, and some DNS resolvers have historically had trouble reaching its domains. |
| Best for |
|
|
|
|
| Category | Reading & Research | Reading & Research | Reading & Research | Reading & Research |
| Last checked | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-29 | 2026-07-29 |
| Open the site | Open | Open | Open | Open |
This comparison is in the address bar — copy the URL to send it to someone.