What it is

Consensus is a search engine that pulls answers from peer-reviewed studies and shows you the scientific consensus on a question. It does not invent citations — every claim links to a real paper, and a "consensus meter" shows how strongly the literature agrees. Ideal for fact-checking health, psychology, and nutrition claims.

Best for

Quickly check what science says about a claim
Get a consensus meter showing how strong the evidence is
Find supporting or contradicting studies for a hypothesis

Pros

Real papers only — no hallucinated citations
Consensus meter is a unique, useful signal
Clean, focused interface

Cons

Limited to domains with strong empirical research (health, psych, nutrition)
Less useful for engineering or frontier tech questions

Quick start

Sign up at consensus.app with email or Google — free tier gives a handful of papers per query.
Type a yes/no scientific question ("Does X cause Y?" or "Is X effective for Y?"). Consensus returns real, peer-reviewed studies that answer that exact question.
Look at the "consensus meter" — it shows how strongly the literature agrees (yes / mostly yes / mixed / mostly no / no).
Click any cited paper to jump to PubMed or the journal. Use Filters to narrow by year, study type, or sample size.
Premium $9/mo unlocks unlimited searches, full-text PDFs, GPT-4-tier synthesis, and citation export.

Sample input / output

Input

Question: "Does intermittent fasting reduce body weight in adults without diabetes?"

Output

Consensus meter: YES (strong evidence)

Top cited RCTs and meta-analyses:
  - Trexler et al. (2020, JISSN): systematic review of 27 trials, mean Δweight = -1.3 kg
  - Varady et al. (2022, Annu Rev Nutr): meta-analysis of 76 trials, -1.7 kg at 12 weeks
  - Liu et al. (2024, NEJM): n=2,540, weight loss -3.1 kg at 24 weeks vs. control

Bottom-line: "Yes — intermittent fasting produces modest weight loss (~1.5–3 kg) versus unrestricted eating over 3–6 months. Effects plateau after 6 months. Long-term adherence is the main limitation."

Benchmarks

Indexed papers 200M+ (PubMed / Semantic Scholar / OpenAlex)

Domain coverage Health, psychology, nutrition, biology, social science — strongest where RCTs exist

Premium price $9/mo (or $90/yr) — consensus.app pricing

Citation integrity Every claim links to a real paper; no fabricated citations — consensus.app /pricing

Pricing

Free tier; Premium $9/mo

Underlying models

Custom search + GPT-4o class summarization

Should you pick this?

Pick it if You want to fact-check a scientific claim and see how strong the actual evidence is — Consensus's "consensus meter" is the fastest honesty check on the internet.

Skip it if You need deep methodology analysis or full-text extraction across hundreds of papers — Elicit goes further on systematic reviews. For non-scientific queries, use Perplexity.

Consensus