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Local Deep Research vs PaperQA2: catalog facts
Local Deep Research	PaperQA2
Free Free, with source code published on GitHub; cloud model providers may charge.	Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence; model API usage may cost extra.
Self-hosted	Command line
Works with local models or cloud providers Searches arXiv, PubMed and more than ten other sources	Answers include citations to the source documents Fetches paper metadata with citation counts and retraction checks
Good results with local models need a capable GPU Self-hosting setup is more involved than a hosted service	Needs a language model, either through an API or run locally Setup and tuning assume comfort with Python
Self-hosted	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License: Apache-2.0
Not stated if an account is 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 24, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

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