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OpenAlex

OurResearch
open source / Overall score: n/a

Free catalog of the world's scholarly research, run by the nonprofit OurResearch, covering hundreds of millions of works with their authors, institutions, sources and funders. Its REST API searches works by keyword or by meaning, sorts them by relevance, and links each open-access work it holds a copy of to the full text as a PDF and as structured XML. The data is released under CC0, and the whole database can be downloaded as a free snapshot.

Casual use of the API needs no key. A free key raises the daily allowance to $1 of usage, and heavier use is paid as you go or through annual plans; the help center says the data is free and what is sold is serving, freshness and support. The full-text cache covers open-access works only, and the PDFs keep their original copyright. The openalex.org website runs on the same public API, and its home page is a JavaScript application that points programmatic callers to help.openalex.org.

Openness

5 medium confidence
5.0
license
MIT(OSI
source
public(the Elasticsearch-backed API service and the data pipelines that build the catalog)
core features withheld
no — OurResearch states all code is open source and charges for usage, sync and support
managed
api.openalex.org, free daily budget, then metered usage and annual plans

The code behind the API and the pipelines that build the catalog are published under MIT, and OurResearch says all of its code is open source. What it charges for is API usage above a free daily allowance, faster snapshot updates and support, not features held back from the code. Confidence is medium because the API repository describes itself as only the Elasticsearch-backed portion of the service, and not every newer piece, such as the full-text download service, could be matched to a published license.

Adoption

not assessed

OurResearch publishes no request, user or customer count for the API; its help center gives prices and rate limits and says only that most users stay on the free tier. The API needs no package to call, and the most downloaded Python client is a third-party wrapper, so no package count would measure the service. No level is recorded.

  • https://help.openalex.org/access/pricing.md recorded 2026-10-13

    Pricing and plan terms, including "the vast majority of users never leave the free tier", with no request, user or customer count, which is why no level is recorded.

  • https://help.openalex.org/api/authentication.md recorded 2026-10-13

    Rate limits by caller (10 requests per second with no key, 30 with a free key or prepaid usage, 50 on an annual plan) and usage headers; no aggregate usage figure.

Capability

4 medium confidence
4.0

OpenAlex ranks works for a query by relevance and, for the more than 50 million open-access works it keeps a copy of, returns the full text through the same API key, both as the PDF and as structured XML parsed from it. Finding sources and then fetching their content puts it level with DDGS. It does not compose an answer from what it finds, and the full text stops at the open-access subset of the catalog.

  • https://help.openalex.org/access/fulltext.md recorded 2026-10-13

    "OpenAlex keeps its own cached copy of the full text for more than 50 million open-access works, as PDF and as machine-readable TEI XML parsed by Grobid"; works link to it through `has_content` and `content_urls` on `content.openalex.org`; "Any API key works, including a free one; downloads are metered against your daily usage like any other call."

  • https://help.openalex.org/api/searching.md recorded 2026-10-13

    "The `search` parameter finds results matching a given text search"; works search covers `title`, `abstract`, `fulltext` and keywords; "Search results include a `relevance_score` property and are sorted by it (descending) by default"; rerank reorders the top 100.

Verified 2026-10-13