Semantic Scholar Academic Graph API
semanticscholar.org · Debrid · 1 record · JSON
Semantic Scholar Academic Graph API Debrid
caveatemailno cardDrequest-rate
| Free tier | 'Most Semantic Scholar endpoints are available to the public without authentication, but they are rate-limited to 1000 requests per second shared among all unauthenticated users. Requests may also be further throttled during periods of heavy use.' An API key gives '1 RPS on all endpoints' as an introductory rate. unit requests; metered on request-count; 1,000 requests/second is a pool shared by every anonymous caller in the world, not a per-client allowance. |
|---|---|
| Price | USD 0 |
| Per-object cap | not applicable: JSON responses, paged with limit/offset or the batch endpoints |
| Retention | a continuously rebuilt index; no retention clock is published for the graph |
| Egress | Free. No card, no institution. The key is a higher-limit credential, not a payment. free_allowance: 1,000 requests/second shared across all anonymous users |
| Identity | email Anonymous use is allowed but throttled; the key that raises the ceiling is issued by email request. No card and no institution. |
| Limits |
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| Binding | request-rate The pool is shared with every anonymous caller, so the client's own rate is irrelevant: the first anonymous request was already refused with 429. |
| Interface | rest, cli GET https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=...&fields=...; x-api-key header when a key is used. |
| Tooling | curl/python-requests; the semanticscholar python client; batch endpoints for up to 500 IDs per call. |
| Composes with | The citation graph to join against Crossref and OpenAlex metadata; the shared anonymous pool makes it a best-effort enrichment step, not a bulk harvester. |
| Reliability | The anonymous pool is exhausted often enough that a single first request returned 429 with a 174-byte JSON error; a harvester must treat 429 as the normal case rather than an exception. |
| Notes | The caveat is availability, not price: a 1,000 rps global pool sounds large and behaves like a queue. A key trades the pool for a predictable 1 rps. |
| Evidence rung | documented The rate-limit sentence is the vendor's own, and a 429 was observed on the first anonymous request. The throughput at which 429s stop was not characterised. |
| Checked | 2026-10-24 (live); stale on 2026-11-23 |
| Parsed numbers |
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Evidence (2)
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-23 | www.semanticscholar.org/product/api | 'rate-limited to 1000 requests per second shared among all unauthenticated users' and '1 RPS on all endpoints' for a key |
| 2026-10-23 | probe:https://api.semanticscholar.org/graph/v1/paper/search?query=cancer&limit=1&fields=title | 429 with 174 bytes of JSON on the first anonymous request - the shared pool was already exhausted |
More fields (3)
{
"anonymous_pool_rps": 1000,
"key_rps": 1,
"observed_first_request": 429
}