Overview
Research Rabbit is a visual literature discovery platform often described as “Spotify for research papers,” using citation networks and machine learning (not just LLMs) to recommend related work. Starting from seed papers or topics, it builds interactive citation maps that show how papers, authors, and research clusters are connected over time.
Pricing
Free
- Research Rabbit has a free tier that the team states will remain “free forever for researchers,” with access to core features like collections, visual maps, author networks, and alerts.
- Free users can create collections, explore citation maps, follow authors, and stay updated on new papers in their fields.
Premium
- Premium (powered in part by Litmaps tech) is optional and adds deeper search, more comprehensive results, and richer workflows for heavy users.
- External benchmarks suggest premium pricing in the roughly 8.99–16.67 USD/month range (billed annually), with regional pricing and student discounts.
Key Features
- Citation-based literature mapping – Builds visual citation maps where each node is a paper and edges represent citation relationships, helping users see clusters and key works at a glance.
- Seed-paper exploration & related papers – Users start from one or more seed papers; Research Rabbit finds earlier, later, and similar papers based on citations and bibliographic coupling.raziaaliani.
- Author networks & follow – Visualizes author collaborations and lets users follow authors to receive updates on new publications.subjectguides.
- Collections & collaboration – Create and share collections of papers with colleagues, making it easier to coordinate reading lists and project libraries.
- Alerts & trend tracking – Follow topics, collections, or authors to get notified about newly published related work.libguides.
Best Use Cases
- Exploratory literature mapping – Quickly understanding a new field by seeing influential papers and how they connect.
- Graduate theses & dissertations – Building and maintaining curated collections for thesis projects and seeing which works are central vs. peripheral.
- Research groups & labs – Sharing collections and maps across teams to keep everyone aligned on core readings and new developments.
- Writing centers & library instruction – Teaching students how to expand from one article to a broader, well-structured literature base.research.
- Complement to database searches – Using Research Rabbit alongside databases like PubMed or Web of Science to visually extend and refine search results.
Pros
- ✅ Excellent visual maps – Network views of papers and authors give an intuitive picture of how research is connected.
- ✅ Strong for discovery from seeds – Citation-based recommendations reliably uncover relevant papers that keyword searches might miss.
- ✅ Generous free tier – Core mapping and discovery features are free and intended to remain so for researchers.
- ✅ Great teaching and collaboration tool – Easy to use in workshops, classes, and group projects to demonstrate literature mapping.library.
Cons
- ❌ Database coverage not exhaustive – Underlying database can be partially outdated or less complete than major citation indexes, especially in some fields.subjectguides.
- ❌ Not a full-text or systematic review engine – Best for discovery and mapping; users still need other tools for comprehensive searches and full-text analysis.
- ❌ Feature development slower than paid competitors – Small team and free-first model mean new features may arrive more slowly than in commercial tools.
Official Website
Research Rabbit – Official visual literature mapping tool: https://www.researchrabbit.ai
Release Date: Research Rabbit was founded around 2021 as a citation-based literature mapping platform using citation network analysis and machine learning to recommend related papers.
Last Updated: December 2025