Is Lune an Elicit alternative?

For conference-driven fields, yes. For a biomedical systematic review, Elicit indexes far more of what you need and screens it better.

Does Elicit have an MCP server?

Yes, at elicit.com/api/mcp. MCP is table stakes now, so the question is what the tools do once they are connected.

Which one has more papers?

Elicit, by a wide margin. Lune reads top-tier venues in full instead of trying to hold all of published science.

Plenty of people do. Elicit for the wide screening pass, Lune inside the editor for drafting and checking claims.

Comparisons

Lune vs Elicit

Elicit narrows a very large index down to a table. Lune reads a much smaller one all the way down to the sentence. Both cite their sources. They disagree about what a citation owes you.

Install the connector See pricing elicit.com

Start with the one you should not buy from us

If the first list is you, take Elicit.

Choose Elicit if

Screening thousands of papers into a table is the deliverable.
You work in clinical or biomedical research, where the answer sits in a journal.
You need PRISMA-shaped review output and seat management.

Choose Lune if

You already work in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex or ChatGPT.
You publish at NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL, CVPR, USENIX Security and the rest.
You want each sentence checked against a quote you can read.
$49 a month is a lot for an agent to reach the literature.

From a question to a citation

Elicit

Search 125M+ papers
Screen into a table
Cited report

Lune

Search top-tier venues
Read the full text
Quote with a locator

Elicit stops at the paper. Lune keeps going, into the paper's own sentences.

Line by line

Marks the side we think wins. We mark the ones we lose.

DimensionLuneElicit

What you use
Lune
Tools your agent calls, plus a CLI and three miniapps.
Elicit
A web workspace, with an API and MCP on top.
What is indexed
Lune
Top-tier venues, most papers in full text.
Elicit
Elicit wins this row. More than 125 million papers, every field.
What is left out
Lune
Lune wins this row. Everything outside a CORE or CCF top-tier venue.
Elicit
Little. Preprints and journals of every rank sit together.
How deep a citation goes
Lune
Lune wins this row. A verbatim quote and its locator, per claim.
Elicit
A link to the paper, and full-text chat on it.
Agent access
Lune
Lune wins this row. Included on the free plan.
Elicit
Their docs: API access requires Pro or above.
Entry price
Lune
Lune wins this row. $4.99 a month, or $47.90 a year.
Elicit
$49 a month.
Methodology guidance
Lune
Lune wins this row. A corpus on peer review, ablations and venue choice.
Elicit
None published.

Where the difference comes from

A smaller index is the point

Elicit indexes roughly a thousand times more papers than Lune. If your question is clinical, that breadth is the product and you should use it.

The trouble starts when an agent picks the citation. A person scanning results notices that the third hit is a paper-mill preprint. An agent optimizing for a plausible reference does not. Lune filters at the venue, so there is nothing left to notice.

Two things get called a citation

Elicit links the paper, which is more than most tools manage. Checking it still means opening the PDF and reading until you find the line.

Lune's unit is the line. verify_claims answers each claim with a quote and where it sits, or reports that it found no support. That second case is the one worth paying for.

What agent access costs

Elicit's free tier is generous for a human at the web app. Agent access is a separate line: their own docs say the API needs Pro, at $49 a month.

On Lune the free plan is the agent plan. 10 requests a day, every tool. Pro is $4.99 for 300 a day.

What your agent can call

search_papers
search_papers_many
search_related_papers
get_paper_fulltext
get_paper_citations
extract_from_papers
verify_claims
gather_evidence
list_conferences
get_conference_papers
search_research_guidance
get_research_guidance_doc

One connection, in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT or anything else that speaks MCP. The same tools back the miniapps in the Lune dashboard.

Price

Lune

Free: $0 10 requests a day, every tool
Pro: $4.99 a month or $47.90 a year, 300 requests a day
Max: $9.99 a month or $95.90 a year, 600 requests a day
Credits: $0.99 300 extra requests, no expiry

Elicit

Basic: $0 limited agent and report usage
Pro: $49 a month, includes API access
Scale: $169 a month, 5x usage
Enterprise: Custom SSO, PRISMA screening

Elicit discounts these on annual billing. Prices move; treat this as a snapshot, not a quote.

What we read

Questions

Is Lune an Elicit alternative?: For conference-driven fields, yes. For a biomedical systematic review, Elicit indexes far more of what you need and screens it better.
Does Elicit have an MCP server?: Yes, at elicit.com/api/mcp. MCP is table stakes now, so the question is what the tools do once they are connected.
Which one has more papers?: Elicit, by a wide margin. Lune reads top-tier venues in full instead of trying to hold all of published science.
Can I use both?: Plenty of people do. Elicit for the wide screening pass, Lune inside the editor for drafting and checking claims.

Trustworthy AI for Scientific Research

Free to start. Every tool from the first request.

Try Lune All comparisons