Litmaps
Academic research tool that builds interactive citation network maps from seed papers, helping researchers discover connected literature they would otherwise miss.
Litmaps is an academic research tool that builds interactive citation network visualizations, letting researchers see how papers connect through citations and discover relevant literature they might otherwise miss. Users seed a map with one or more key papers, and Litmaps automatically builds a network showing which works cite each other, revealing influential papers and identifying research gaps. Founded in 2020 by Kyle Webster and team in New Zealand, Litmaps secured backing from Callaghan Innovation. The platform integrates with Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and Web of Science to pull citation data, and sends alert notifications when new papers matching a research area are published. As of 2025, Litmaps serves researchers at over 2,500 universities worldwide with a freemium model.
Key Features
- Citation network visualization mapping how papers reference each other in an interactive 2D graph
- Seed map generation from any DOI, PubMed ID, or paper title - builds the network instantly
- Alert system notifying researchers when new papers citing their seed papers are published
- Integration with Semantic Scholar and PubMed for automatic citation data import
- Literature overlap analysis showing which papers are cited by multiple key works in your area
- Export citation lists to BibTeX, Zotero, and Mendeley for reference management software
- Collaborative maps for research teams to build, annotate, and share a living literature network
Use Cases
- PhD students conducting systematic literature reviews who need to ensure they haven't missed key papers
- Academics entering a new research area who want to quickly identify the most cited foundational works
- Grant writers demonstrating comprehensive awareness of prior research in their application literature sections
- Journal editors assessing whether a submitted manuscript has engaged adequately with relevant prior work
Pros
- Citation network visualization surfaces papers that keyword search alone would never find
- Alert system is genuinely useful for researchers who need to stay current in fast-moving fields
- Collaborative maps allow research teams to share and annotate a single living literature network
Cons
- Coverage depends on Semantic Scholar and PubMed - niche journals with poor digital presence may be missing
- Map complexity grows exponentially with large seed sets - becomes visually overwhelming beyond 50+ papers
- Free tier limits the number of maps and papers per map, restricting use for large-scale literature reviews
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