Best Unpaywall Alternatives ranked by AI · updated May 2025

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Unpaywall is a free browser extension that finds full-text versions of research papers across the web.

Price: Free 🎯 unpaywall.org

💼 Productivity 🎓 Education 📚 Ebooks 🔍 Research Tools

Top 6 Unpaywall alternatives

Open Access Button

OurResearch

Open Access Button was a service for researchers that found legal, freely accessible copies of scholarly articles and helped request papers from...

Pros

Focused specifically on locating legal open-access copies
Could request articles directly from authors when no free copy was found
Supported DOI, title, and browser-based searches

Cons

Retired and no longer available for active use
Coverage depended on repository deposits and author responses
Had less comprehensive scholarly discovery than Google Scholar or Semantic Scholar

Free

Alternatives to Open Access Button → Visit site

Kopernio

Kopernio helps you access research articles and organize your references. Works seamlessly with your browser.

Pros

Access to research articles
Reference organization

Cons

Premium features require payment

Free basic version, Paid premium

Alternatives to Kopernio →

Sci-Hub

Sci-Hub is a website that provides free access to research papers.

Pros

Free access to research papers
Easy to use interface

Cons

Legal issues with publishers

Free

Alternatives to Sci-Hub →

Wayback Machine

Internet Archive

Wayback Machine is a public web archive for viewing historical versions of websites and submitting pages for preservation. It is used by...

Pros

Largest and most widely indexed general-purpose web archive
Provides historical snapshots spanning decades
Supports on-demand page saving through Save Page Now

Cons

Coverage and capture quality vary significantly by site
Some pages lose functionality because assets or scripts were not archived
Search and browsing can be slower than smaller archives

Free

Alternatives to Wayback Machine → Visit site

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array...

Free

Alternatives to Google Scholar → Visit site

ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a professional network for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.

Free, with premium features available for a fee

Alternatives to ResearchGate → Visit site

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