SciSpace, Elicit or Consensus
All three are English-language academic search tools built for different research jobs: Consensus answers quickly whether research supports a claim, Elicit handles screening and data extraction for systematic reviews, and SciSpace bundles search, single-PDF Q&A and writing tools. None has a Chinese literature database or turns papers into a manuscript, and those are Acadwrite's focus.
Product details checked against each vendor's website, pricing page and help center on 22 October 2026. Numbers in brackets link to the sources at the end of the page.
Choose by the job in front of you
| What you need to do | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Check whether research supports a claim | Consensus | Every claim links to a real paper; the free plan gives 10 Pro messages and 3 deep reviews a month with unlimited paper search.[7][8] |
| Systematic review: screen thousands of papers and extract data into tables | Elicit | Pro adds up to 5,000 papers per review and shows the quote behind every screening decision, though an independent study measured its search sensitivity at 39.5%, so pair it with database searches.[5][10] |
| Read a single English PDF closely and ask questions | SciSpace | Chat with PDF takes PDFs up to 100 MB; the free plan includes 100 credits a month.[2][1] |
| Write a review that needs Chinese literature | Acadwrite | None of the three mentions CNKI or Wanfang, and Elicit acknowledges gaps in Chinese publications; Acadwrite searches Chinese and English literature and writes in Chinese.[4] |
| Turn screened papers into a review or introduction | Acadwrite | Elicit describes its reports as a rough draft of a related-work section and Consensus does not write; Acadwrite confirms the paper list and outline first and cites at least 30 papers.[6][8] |
| Simulate peer review or check statistical reporting before submission | Acadwrite | Three simulated reviewers anchor comments to the text; the statistical reporting skill checks experimental units, multiple comparisons and the n in figure legends. |
| Pay per use in RMB | Acadwrite | All three sell US-dollar subscriptions only; Acadwrite charges by use at ¥2 per credit. |
Side by side
Grey text means the vendor's pages do not say. That does not mean the feature is missing.
| SciSpace, Elicit, Consensus and Acadwrite compared | SciSpace | Elicit | Consensus | Acadwrite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best at | Search, single-PDF Q&A, writing and AI detection in one place[1] | Systematic reviews: screening, data extraction, reports[5] | Answering research questions with how many papers agree[8] | Writing papers into reviews and introductions, with citations, review and polishing |
| Paper database | Over 200 million papers from OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar and Google Scholar (another page says 280 million)[3] | About 138 million papers from Semantic Scholar, PubMed and OpenAlex, updated weekly; no books or dissertations[4] | Over 220 million papers from Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex and publisher partnerships (homepage says 400 million)[8] | Journal articles, arXiv and PubMed, in Chinese and English |
| Chinese literature | Not stated | Acknowledges gaps in Chinese publications[4] | Not stated | Searches Chinese literature |
| Independent evaluations | Median reference hallucination score of 1 in a medical study (0–11, lower is better)[11] | Score of 1 in the same study; mean systematic-review search sensitivity 39.5% versus 94.5% for conventional searches[11][10] | No independent evaluation of similar scale found | No independent evaluation yet; every citation links to the paper for checking |
| Writing | AI Writer autocompletes and adds citations; an AI humanizer is sold separately[12][1] | Reports are framed as a rough related-work draft, not a full paper[6] | Does not write papers[8] | Review and introduction workflows written in Chinese, edited further in the workspace |
| Export | BibTeX and RIS[13] | RIS, CSV, BIB, PDF and DOCX from Plus[5] | RIS and CSV; answers export to PDF[9] | Workspace files export to Word with the reference list |
| Pricing | Free 100 credits a month; Premium $20 a month or $12 billed yearly[1] | Free unlimited search; Academic Plus $19 a month or $11 billed yearly[5] | Free 10 Pro messages and 3 deep reviews a month; Pro $20 a month or $12 billed yearly[7] | Pay per use at ¥2 per credit; a review in a workspace uses about 8–9 credits |
Skills for after the screening
Once search and screening are done, the paper still has to be understood, appraised, written and submitted. Each step has skills written for academic work. They come from open-source projects on GitHub; enable them in the skill market and use them in workspace chats.
- 23
academic skills from 9 open-source projects, covering writing, polishing, review, verification and topic design
- 54K
stars for K-Dense scientific-agent-skills, source of 5 skills including scientific writing and critical appraisal
- 50K
stars for nature-skills, source of 10 skills including close reading, simulated review and statistical reporting review
- 14K
stars for AI-Research-SKILLs, source of the conference paper and ideation skills
Star counts as shown on GitHub on 22 October 2026.
Reading and appraisal
Paper reading card
Breaks a paper into 16 fixed sections: method modules, the evidence chain from experiments to claims, and author-stated limits kept apart from critique.
nature-skillsCritical appraisal of claims
Examines design, bias and confounding and statistical misuse, grading evidence with GRADE and Cochrane risk-of-bias frameworks.
K-Dense scientific-agent-skillsTestable hypotheses
Lists competing explanations for an observation and derives the predictions, controls and falsification conditions that separate them, ending in a pre-registered plan.
K-Dense scientific-agent-skills
Writing the paper
Evidence-based scientific writing
Never invents data or citations, applies CONSORT, PRISMA, STROBE and other reporting guidelines by study design, and structures each IMRaD section.
K-Dense scientific-agent-skillsNature paper writing
Combines rules for paper type, section and target journal to draft the abstract through discussion from the author's own evidence.
nature-skillsConference papers
For NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL and others: the narrative, page allocation by section and what reviewers score.
AI-Research-SKILLs
Before submission
Nature simulated reviewused in paper review
Three independent reviewers assess originality, significance and technical soundness, with comments anchored to the text.
nature-skillsStatistical reporting review
Checks experimental units, multiple comparisons, effect sizes and uncertainty, and the n, error bars and asterisks in figure legends.
nature-skillsReference checkingused in reference checks
Verifies authors, title, year, volume, pages and DOI against authoritative bibliographic metadata, catching year conflicts and mismatched DOIs.
nature-skills
FAQ
Plans and allowances change often. Check each vendor's pricing page.
SciSpace, Elicit or Consensus: which is best?
It depends on the task. To check whether research supports a claim, use Consensus; for a systematic review that screens thousands of papers and extracts data, use Elicit; to read a single English PDF closely and ask questions, use SciSpace. Paid plans for all three cost about $20 a month.
Can Elicit replace database searches for a systematic review?
Not entirely. In an independent study benchmarked against four published evidence reviews, Elicit's mean search sensitivity was 39.5% versus 94.5% for conventional searches. Elicit's own 93.6% figure measures recall at the screening stage, which is a different thing. Use it to speed up screening and extraction, alongside database searches.
Can these three search Chinese literature?
None mentions CNKI or Wanfang. Elicit's help center states there are gaps in Chinese publications; SciSpace and Consensus draw on Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex and similar, mostly English-language, sources.
Can SciSpace write papers?
Its AI Writer autocompletes text and adds citations, and SciSpace also sells an AI humanizer; the AI Writer page says the content is made good enough to pass as human. Whether it generates a whole paper or asks you to confirm an outline is not stated.
How is Acadwrite different from these three?
The three mainly handle searching and screening English literature. Acadwrite searches Chinese and English literature and writes it into a Chinese review or introduction: you confirm the paper list and outline, every citation links to the paper, and you can then simulate peer review and polish. It charges by use at ¥2 per credit.
Sources
All pages accessed on 22 October 2026.
- [1]SciSpace：Pricing
- [2]SciSpace：Chat with PDF help article
- [3]SciSpace：How SciSpace search works
- [4]Elicit：Elicit's source for papers
- [5]Elicit：Pricing (Academic view)
- [6]Elicit：Research reports
- [7]Consensus：Subscription plans
- [8]Consensus：LibGuide for academic research
- [9]Consensus：Export to reference managers
- [10]Lau & Golder, Cochrane Evidence Synthesis and Methods, 2025：Sensitivity and precision of Elicit for evidence review searches
- [11]Aljamaan et al., JMIR Medical Informatics, 2024：Reference Hallucination Score for Medical Artificial Intelligence Chatbots
- [12]SciSpace：AI Writer
- [13]SciSpace：Generate bibliographies (BibTeX and RIS export)