# Lune vs PapersGPT

PapersGPT lives inside Zotero and talks to the library you already curated, with local models if you want it fully offline. Lune has no library. It searches the venues, reads the full text and quotes it back.

Competitor site: https://papersgpt.com.

## Choose PapersGPT if

- Zotero is where your papers live and you want the AI to come to them.
- You need local models and offline processing for confidentiality.
- A lifetime license beats a subscription for how you work.

## Choose Lune if

- The papers you need are not in your library yet.
- You want claims checked against published text, with a locator.
- You want the same tools in Claude Code and Cursor, not only in Zotero.

## From a question to a citation

PapersGPT: Open your Zotero library -> Chat across PDFs -> Answer with citations.
Lune: Search top-tier venues -> Read the full text -> Quote with a locator.

One works your library. The other works the venues.

## Line by line

| Dimension | Lune | PapersGPT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Where papers come from | A curated index of top-tier venues, plus your uploads. | Your Zotero library, and PDFs you add to it. |
| Where it runs | Any MCP client, plus a CLI and three miniapps. | Inside Zotero, with an MCP server for Claude Desktop. |
| Privacy posture | Hosted. Your documents stay scoped to your team. | Local models run fully offline. |
| How deep a citation goes | A verbatim quote and its locator, per claim. | Answers cite the PDFs in your library. |
| Discovery | Search, sweep, related papers, citation graph. | Literature review over what you already hold. |
| Entry price | $4.99 a month ($47.90 a year), or free for 10 requests a day. | From $7 a month, or a lifetime license from $39. |

## The library problem and the discovery problem

PapersGPT assumes the hard part is already done: you found the papers, they are in Zotero, and now you need to read them faster. Inside that assumption it is excellent, and running a local model over your own PDFs is a genuinely good answer for confidential work.

Lune assumes the opposite. The papers that would change your argument are the ones you have not read, so they are not in the library. Nothing inside Zotero can find them.

## Both speak MCP, so compare the tools

PapersGPT ships an MCP server for Claude Desktop, so an agent can reach your library through it. Lune ships one too, and both work in the same clients.

What differs is the reach. PapersGPT's tools operate over your collection. Lune's operate over accepted papers you have never opened, and answer with the sentence rather than the file.

## 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
- PapersGPT Paid: from $7, a month, AI credits included
- PapersGPT Lifetime: from $39, one-time license

PapersGPT includes chat credits, so no separate API key is needed.

## Questions

### Is Lune a PapersGPT alternative?

For finding papers and checking claims, yes. For chatting with a Zotero library offline, PapersGPT does something Lune does not.

### Does PapersGPT have an MCP server?

Yes, for Claude Desktop. It also supports local models through Ollama-style runtimes.

### Does Lune work with Zotero?

Not directly. Lune returns paper metadata and quotes; your agent or reference manager handles filing.

## What we read

- [papersgpt.com](https://papersgpt.com)