What it does
PaperQA2 reads your PDFs, text files, Office documents and code, with a focus on scientific papers. You ask a question and it writes an answer that cites the documents and pages it relied on.
It uses RAG, short for retrieval-augmented generation: it first finds the most relevant passages, then has an AI model write an answer from them. It can also look up details about papers, such as citation counts and retractions.
Its makers report strong results on science tasks like answering questions, summarising and spotting contradictions. It works with many AI providers.
Who it's for
Scientists, students and researchers who need trustworthy answers drawn from a stack of papers.
Can I use it without coding?
Developers only. It is installed with Python and used from the command line or in code. New to this? Start here.
Can I run it?
- Runs on
- Mac, Windows, Linux
- Computer
- An ordinary computer is fine
- API key
- Not needed
Try it
Using Claude Code, Cursor or another AI coding assistant? Paste the prompt and it will walk you through the setup.New to this?
Before you install
- Only download from the official GitHub page. Copies with similar names exist for many popular projects.
- License (Apache-2.0): Permissive: free to use, change and share, including for business.
- More on staying safe