Consensus vs Rayyan (2026)

Consensus

by Consensus

Rayyan

by Rayyan

Pros

• ✓Answers are drawn from the peer-reviewed literature with inline citations, and Citation Grounding shows the exact quote behind every AI citation.
• ✓The Consensus Meter shows how far studies agree on a yes-or-no question, and Deep Search and the Research Agent run multi-step literature research.
• ✓An MCP server and REST API come with paid plans, and Consensus runs as an app inside ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• ✓Over 170 university libraries partner with Consensus, and it licenses full text from publishers including Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis and AAAS.

Limitations

• –Searches the academic literature rather than the open web, news or company reports, and its default index excludes grey literature.
• –Deep review volume is capped by plan, from 15 a month on Pro to 200 on Deep, and API and MCP use past the included amount costs $0.05 per use.
• –Consensus publishes no third-party security certification, and its privacy policy states it is not subject to the CCPA.
• –The corpus is English-first, and search ranking and summaries are optimized for English queries.

Pros

• ✓A usable free plan with duplicate detection and AI relevance predictions, and paid seats from $4.99/mo billed annually.
• ✓Covers the whole screening workflow in one place: import, duplicates, blind screening, full-text review, data extraction, risk of bias and PRISMA diagrams.
• ✓Rayyan says it is used by more than 1 million researchers at more than 30,000 institutions, and it offers iOS and Android apps that screen offline.

Limitations

• –It screens references a team has already gathered; it does not search literature databases for them.
• –ResearchPilot's AI Reviewer starts on the Business/Academic plan at $2,500 a year for 5 licenses, and the API and SSO need the custom-priced Enterprise plan.
• –A thin independent review record: no G2 reviews and 3.6 stars from 240 reviews on Google Play, and SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 are shown as engagements rather than completed certifications.