Litmaps

Litmaps is literature review software designed to help researchers, students, and professionals discover academic papers and manage their research. The product takes the form of a digital platform featuring dynamic visualizations, citation mapping, and discovery tools. It is aimed at individuals and teams looking to accelerate literature reviews, identify key citations, and track new publications in their fields.

• Discover relevant academic papers using search tools and seed articles
• Visualize research connections and structures using interactive maps and a date versus citation graph format
• Collaborate on literature reviews with colleagues, students, or advisors
• Receive automatic literature alerts and updates for new papers on specific topics
• Organize research projects and see how they relate to each other
• Generate bibtex references for research papers

Pros

• Provides visual citation maps that help users orient articles in the history of a field
• Enables collaboration features for teams, labs, and institutions
• Offers literature alerts on a daily, weekly, or configurable basis depending on the plan
• Streamlines the identification of key citations and uncovers previously overlooked relevant literature

Cons

• The free tier limits users to 20 inputs, 2 Litmaps, and 100 articles per map
• Creating a Litmap requires a larger screen, making it less suitable for mobile device use
• The Pro educational discount requires an academic email address
• The pricing page does not publish explicit flat rates for the Team or Enterprise tiers, requiring users to talk to sales or get in touch

Litmaps fits students, full-time researchers, doctoral scholars, professors, and professionals who need to map out academic literature and organize related work sections for papers. It is well-suited for early-stage researchers or those investigating unfamiliar fields who benefit from visual graph formats over standard database interfaces. It is a poor fit for users attempting to build maps on small mobile screens without a larger display.

Litmaps uses a freemium pricing model with a free tier and paid plans above it. The Free tier offers a monthly literature summary, basic search, up to 20 inputs, 2 Litmaps, and 100 articles per map for zero cost. The Pro tier is available for $10 per month with annual billing ($120 per year) or via monthly billing, requiring an academic email address for educational pricing, and includes daily or configurable literature alerts, basic and advanced search, unlimited inputs, unlimited articles, and unlimited Litmaps. The Team tier offers team-wide unlimited collaboration, advanced search, and daily or configurable alerts, with pricing available upon contacting sales. Customizable licensing plans are also available for classrooms, labs, and institutions.

Unlike traditional academic databases that present search results in standard text lists and database interfaces, Litmaps lays out research articles in a date versus citation graph format and interactive seed maps. This visual approach helps users see connections between articles spaced out visually, providing a bird's-eye view of referencing structures. Instead of requiring hours of digging through standard database text, Litmaps displays how a paper fits into the history of a field.