# Lune vs Inquisite

Inquisite searches more than 100 million papers semantically, shows how they relate, and runs on a model key you supply. Lune covers far less and reads all of it, then hands the text to whatever agent you already use.

Competitor site: https://inquisite.ai.

## Choose Inquisite if

- You want a wide semantic sweep with filters on year, citations and open access.
- You already pay for model access and would rather bring your own key.
- Seeing paper relationships laid out is how you explore a new area.

## Choose Lune if

- You need the sentence behind a claim, not a relevance ranking.
- You want retrieval inside your agent rather than in a search UI.
- Your field is one where the venues, not the volume, decide quality.

## From a question to a citation

Inquisite: Search 100M+ papers -> Filter and visualize -> Shortlist to read.
Lune: Search top-tier venues -> Read the full text -> Quote with a locator.

A wide semantic sweep, or a narrow one read all the way through.

## Line by line

| Dimension | Lune | Inquisite |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What is indexed | Top-tier venues, most papers in full text. | More than 100 million research papers. |
| Filtering | Venue gating, before anything is indexed. | Year, citation count and open-access filters at query time. |
| How deep a citation goes | A verbatim quote and its locator, per claim. | Papers surfaced for you to read. |
| Model and access | MCP and a CLI; your client's model does the reasoning. | A web app with your own saved API key. |
| Published pricing | Free, $4.99 and $9.99 a month, or $47.90 and $95.90 a year. | None published. |
| Methodology guidance | A corpus on peer review, ablations and venue choice. | Not offered. |

## Semantic search is table stakes now

Inquisite does semantic retrieval properly: query by meaning, filter by year and citations, see how the papers relate. Lune does the same thing on its own corpus, and neither of us should pretend that is a differentiator any more.

What still differs is what the index holds. Inquisite reaches a hundred million papers at the metadata layer. Lune reaches far fewer at the sentence layer.

## Finding, then proving

Search ends with a shortlist. That is a fine place to stop when a person will read the shortlist.

It is the wrong place to stop when an agent is writing the paragraph, because a shortlist gives the model nothing to quote. Lune's tools continue past the shortlist into the text, then back out with a quote and a location.

## Pricing

- Lune Free: $0, 10 requests a day, every tool
- Lune Pro: $4.99, a month or $47.90 a year, 300 requests a day
- Lune Max: $9.99, a month or $95.90 a year, 600 requests a day
- Lune Credits: $0.99, 300 extra requests, no expiry
- Inquisite Not published: Sign in, bring your own API key

Inquisite does not publish plan pricing on its site.

## Questions

### Is Lune an Inquisite alternative?

For agent-side retrieval and claim checking, yes. For a wide semantic sweep across 100M+ papers, Inquisite covers more.

### Does Inquisite connect to agents?

It is a web app that uses an API key you save. No MCP server is listed on their site.

### Does Lune show paper relationships?

As tool calls rather than a picture: citation edges in both directions, and related-paper search from any paper.

## What we read

- [inquisite.ai](https://inquisite.ai)