PaperQA
A Python package that indexes scientific documents, retrieves supporting passages and answers questions with source citations.
About PaperQA
Researchers need answers grounded in their paper collections rather than unsupported responses from a general chatbot.
Who it’s for
- Researchers querying collections of scientific papers
- Developers building literature question-answering tools
When to consider it
Consider PaperQA when you want configurable retrieval and cited answers over scientific documents in a Python workflow.
Tradeoffs & limitations
- Requires Python 3.11 or later and either configured model API credentials or a local LLM server.
- Apache-2.0 licensed; the project uses calendar versioning without guarantees of backward compatibility between releases.
SOTA overview · Documentation-based assessment · Sources & review method
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Sources & review method
Documentation-based assessment · Oct 6, 2026 · Prepared with AI assistance; not a hands-on benchmark.
- PaperQA repository and installation guide
- PaperQA license
- FutureHouse tools directory
- FutureHouse organization and owner domain
Checked by SOTA · AI-assisted documentation review. Selection advice is our assessment; verify current requirements for your deployment.
Import history & original evidence
PaperQA on GitHub
A Python package that indexes scientific documents, retrieves supporting passages and answers questions with source citations.
Based on official pages and announcements checked on 2026-10-06. No hands-on test, performance benchmark or popularity ranking is claimed.