Connected Papers vs Litmaps

Connected Papers

Connected Papers' signature feature transforms complex citation networks into intuitive visual graphs where each paper appears as a node, with connections representing citation relationships and content similarity. The AI engine analyzes thousands of papers to identify meaningful relationships, positioning closely related works near each other in the visualization. Node size indicates the paper's influence within the network (based on citation count and centrality), while color coding represents publication year, enabling researchers to instantly distinguish foundational works from recent developments. Users can zoom, pan, and interact with the graph to explore different areas of the research landscape, clicking on any node to view paper details, abstracts, and direct links to full texts. Researchers can comprehend an entire research field's structure in minutes rather than hours, identifying key papers and relationships that would be missed through traditional linear search results.

✓ Researchers can comprehend an entire research field's structure in minutes rather than hours, identifying key papers and relationships that would be missed through traditional linear search results

Litmaps

Litmaps' Seed Map feature allows researchers to start with any paper they already know and automatically generate a comprehensive visualization of related literature. By entering a DOI, title, or selecting from search results, the platform's AI analyzes the seed paper's content, citations, and semantic fingerprint to identify and map dozens or hundreds of related papers. The resulting visualization shows papers as nodes positioned by similarity, with connecting lines indicating citation relationships. Users can adjust parameters like time range, similarity threshold, and citation depth to customize the scope of their exploration. This feature is particularly powerful for researchers entering a new field, as it transforms a single known paper into a gateway to understanding an entire research domain. Transforms a single known paper into a comprehensive map of an entire research field, eliminating hours of manual searching and ensuring no important related work is missed.

✓ Transforms a single known paper into a comprehensive map of an entire research field, eliminating hours of manual searching and ensuring no important related work is missed

Connected Papers

Beyond the main similarity graph, Connected Papers provides specialized views that separate a paper's intellectual ancestry from its subsequent influence. The 'Prior Works' view identifies foundational papers that the selected work builds upon, tracing the intellectual lineage and theoretical foundations of research. Conversely, the 'Derivative Works' view shows papers that have cited and built upon the selected work, revealing how ideas have been extended, applied, or challenged. This bidirectional analysis helps researchers understand both the historical context of research and its ongoing impact, essential for comprehensive literature reviews and identifying research trajectories. Users can trace the complete intellectual history of any research topic, understanding both where ideas originated and how they've evolved, enabling more thorough and contextualized literature reviews.

✓ Users can trace the complete intellectual history of any research topic, understanding both where ideas originated and how they've evolved, enabling more thorough and contextualized literature reviews

Litmaps

The Citation Network Analysis feature provides deep insights into how research papers reference and build upon each other over time. Litmaps visualizes both forward citations (papers that cite a given work) and backward citations (papers that a work references), creating a temporal view of how ideas propagate through the scientific community. The platform identifies highly-cited hub papers that serve as foundational works, as well as emerging papers gaining rapid citation momentum. Users can trace the evolution of specific concepts or methodologies through citation chains, understanding how research questions have been refined and answered over decades. The analysis also reveals citation clusters that may indicate distinct research communities or competing theoretical frameworks. Reveals the intellectual lineage and impact trajectory of research ideas, helping researchers identify foundational works and emerging influential papers in their field.

✓ Reveals the intellectual lineage and impact trajectory of research ideas, helping researchers identify foundational works and emerging influential papers in their field

Connected Papers

Connected Papers allows researchers to build comprehensive graphs by adding multiple seed papers, creating a unified visualization that shows how different papers and research threads interconnect. This feature is particularly valuable for interdisciplinary research or when exploring how different approaches to a problem relate to each other. Users can start with several key papers from their reading list and generate a combined graph that reveals unexpected connections, identifies bridging papers that link different research communities, and provides a holistic view of complex research landscapes spanning multiple sub-fields or methodological approaches. Researchers working on interdisciplinary projects or complex topics can map relationships across multiple research threads, discovering connections and bridging works that would be invisible when examining papers individually.

✓ Researchers working on interdisciplinary projects or complex topics can map relationships across multiple research threads, discovering connections and bridging works that would be invisible when examining papers individually

Litmaps

The Discover Feed is Litmaps' intelligent recommendation engine that continuously monitors academic databases for new publications relevant to a researcher's interests. Unlike generic alerts based on keywords, the Discover Feed uses the semantic understanding derived from a user's existing maps and saved papers to identify truly relevant new work, even if it uses different terminology. The feed learns from user interactions, becoming more accurate over time as researchers save, dismiss, or explore recommended papers. Notifications can be configured for immediate alerts on high-relevance papers or weekly digests summarizing new literature. This feature ensures researchers stay current without the cognitive burden of manually checking multiple journals and databases. Eliminates the fear of missing important new research by providing personalized, AI-curated updates that improve over time based on user behavior and preferences.

✓ Eliminates the fear of missing important new research by providing personalized, AI-curated updates that improve over time based on user behavior and preferences

Connected Papers

Each paper in the Connected Papers graph includes comprehensive metadata displayed in an accessible sidebar panel. Users can view full abstracts, author lists, publication venues, citation counts, and publication dates without leaving the platform. The interface provides direct links to the paper on its original source (journal website, arXiv, PubMed, etc.) as well as links to the paper on Google Scholar for additional context. For papers available as open access, Connected Papers often provides direct PDF links, streamlining the research workflow by reducing the need to navigate multiple databases and repositories. Researchers can evaluate paper relevance directly within the platform, accessing abstracts and metadata to make informed decisions about which papers to read in full, significantly accelerating the literature review process.

✓ Researchers can evaluate paper relevance directly within the platform, accessing abstracts and metadata to make informed decisions about which papers to read in full, significantly accelerating the literature review process

Litmaps

Collaborative Workspaces enable research teams to build shared knowledge bases and conduct literature reviews collectively. Team members can contribute papers to shared maps, add annotations and notes visible to colleagues, and discuss specific papers within the platform. The workspace maintains a complete history of contributions, allowing teams to see how their collective understanding has evolved. Permission controls enable different access levels for team leads, contributors, and viewers. Integration with institutional single sign-on systems simplifies team management for academic departments and research groups. The feature is particularly valuable for systematic reviews, grant applications, and multi-author publications where comprehensive literature coverage is essential. Transforms literature review from a solitary task into a collaborative effort, ensuring comprehensive coverage while distributing the workload across team members.

✓ Transforms literature review from a solitary task into a collaborative effort, ensuring comprehensive coverage while distributing the workload across team members

Connected Papers

Connected Papers generates unique, shareable URLs for every graph created on the platform, enabling seamless collaboration and knowledge sharing among research teams. When a researcher discovers a valuable graph visualization, they can share the exact view with colleagues, supervisors, or students via a simple link. Recipients see the identical graph with all papers and connections preserved, facilitating discussions about research directions, collaborative literature reviews, and educational contexts where instructors want to show students the landscape of a research area. This feature transforms individual discovery into collaborative knowledge building. Research teams can collaborate effectively on literature reviews and research planning, sharing discoveries instantly and building collective understanding of research landscapes without requiring recipients to recreate searches.

✓ Research teams can collaborate effectively on literature reviews and research planning, sharing discoveries instantly and building collective understanding of research landscapes without requiring recipients to recreate searches

Litmaps

Litmaps provides comprehensive export capabilities that integrate seamlessly with researchers' existing workflows and tools. Maps can be exported as high-resolution images suitable for publications, presentations, and grant applications, with customizable styling options for different contexts. Citation data exports in multiple formats including BibTeX, RIS, and EndNote, enabling direct import into reference management software like Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote. The platform also offers API access for programmatic integration with institutional repositories, research information systems, and custom analysis pipelines. CSV exports of paper metadata support further analysis in spreadsheet applications or statistical software, while PDF exports create shareable reports summarizing map contents and key findings. Ensures that insights discovered in Litmaps flow seamlessly into publications, presentations, and other research tools without manual data re-entry or format conversion.

✓ Ensures that insights discovered in Litmaps flow seamlessly into publications, presentations, and other research tools without manual data re-entry or format conversion

Connected Papers

Approach: Connected Papers enhances the systematic review process by providing visual citation network analysis that complements traditional database searches. After conducting initial searches in PubMed, EMBASE, and other databases, the researcher enters key included studies into Connected Papers to identify potentially missed papers through citation network analysis. The visual graph reveals clusters of related research that may use different terminology or be indexed in different databases. The Prior Works and Derivative Works features help ensure comprehensive backward and forward citation searching. By generating graphs from multiple seed papers across different research clusters, the reviewer can identify bridging papers that connect different research traditions and ensure no major body of evidence is overlooked.

Outcome: Systematic reviewers using Connected Papers as a supplementary search method report identifying 15-25% additional relevant studies that were missed by traditional database searches alone. The visual approach also helps reviewers understand the structure of evidence and identify potential sources of heterogeneity in meta-analyses.

Litmaps

Approach: Litmaps accelerates systematic review development by providing a visual complement to traditional database searching. Research teams use the platform to validate the comprehensiveness of their search strategies by comparing database results against Litmaps' semantic and citation-based discovery. The visualization reveals clusters of related research that may require additional search terms or database queries. Teams use Litmaps to identify all papers citing or cited by their included studies, ensuring no relevant work is missed through citation chaining. The collaborative workspace enables distributed screening, with team members annotating papers as included, excluded, or requiring full-text review. The platform's export capabilities generate documentation suitable for PRISMA flow diagrams and supplementary materials. When reviews require updating, teams can quickly identify new publications that have entered the literature since the original search, dramatically reducing the effort required for living systematic reviews.

Outcome: Systematic review teams report identifying 20-30% more relevant studies compared to database searching alone. The visual validation of search comprehensiveness strengthens reviewer confidence and manuscript acceptance rates. Time to complete the search phase decreases by 40%, allowing more resources for quality assessment and synthesis. Living reviews can be updated in days rather than months when new evidence emerges.

Connected Papers

Approach: Connected Papers provides startup founders with an efficient tool for mapping the research landscape underlying their technology. By entering the key papers that inform their product development, founders generate visual graphs that reveal the full scope of related research, including work they may not have been aware of. The temporal view helps identify which research is foundational versus recent, informing IP strategy and technology roadmap decisions. The Derivative Works feature reveals how academic research is being applied and extended, potentially identifying competitor activities or partnership opportunities. Regular monitoring of key research clusters helps founders stay current with developments that could affect their competitive position or create new opportunities.

Outcome: Startup founders report better understanding of their technology's intellectual landscape, improved IP strategy, and more successful identification of academic collaboration opportunities. The visual format facilitates communication with investors and advisors about the research foundation of the company's technology.

Litmaps

Approach: Litmaps provides R&D directors with a dynamic, visual intelligence platform that reveals the scientific landscape around strategic priorities. Directors work with their teams to create maps around key therapeutic targets, technology platforms, and competitor research programs. The visualization immediately shows which institutions and research groups are most active, how research focus has shifted over time, and where emerging clusters might represent breakthrough opportunities. By mapping patent literature alongside academic publications, teams understand the translation pathway from basic research to commercial development. The Discover Feed provides early warning of significant new publications from competitors or potential partners. Directors use Litmaps in strategic planning sessions, with maps serving as shared reference points for discussing investment priorities. The platform's collaboration features enable distributed intelligence gathering, with scientists across the organization contributing insights to shared maps that inform corporate strategy.

Outcome: R&D organizations report making more confident investment decisions with clearer understanding of competitive positioning. Early identification of emerging research directions enables proactive partnership discussions before competitors. Time spent on competitive intelligence decreases by 50% while coverage and depth improve. Strategic planning sessions become more productive with visual maps as shared reference points.