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GPT Researcher vs PaperQA2: catalog facts
GPT Researcher	PaperQA2
Free Free and open source; you pay for any LLM or search APIs you connect.	Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence; model API usage may cost extra.
Web, Self-hosted, Command line	Command line
Writes cited reports from web and local sources Works with many LLM providers	Answers include citations to the source documents Fetches paper metadata with citation counts and retraction checks
Requires API keys and some setup Report quality depends on the model and sources used	Needs a language model, either through an API or run locally Setup and tuning assume comfort with Python
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License: Apache-2.0
No account needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 26, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.