I, Librarian is an open-source reference manager with AI paper summaries and citation search. See its 2026 features, pricing and alternatives.
I, Librarian is a reference and PDF management platform for researchers and institutions, developed by Scilico, LLC, a Dallas, Texas-based software company that has focused on scientific and technical software since around 2015.
It is available as a free, open-source, self-hostable Community Edition distributed on GitHub, and as a commercially licensed cloud or self-hosted product with additional AI-powered features, giving organizations a choice between a fully free option and a paid, more capable one.
The platform is built around a single, centralized, real-time repository of PDFs and references that a whole team or institution can search and share, an explicit alternative to scattering references across individual researchers' local reference managers.
Users can search across major scholarly and patent databases directly from within I, Librarian, including Crossref, Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, PubMed Central, IEEE, NASA's database and a worldwide patent database exceeding 100 million records, alongside full-text and Boolean search of their own stored library.
Newer AI-powered features include instant AI-generated summaries of uploaded papers and AI chat that lets researchers query across their entire document collection in natural language, plus AI-generated text and note summaries within individual PDFs.
Other capabilities include an in-browser PDF viewer with annotation tools, OCR for scanned documents, single sign-on authentication for institutional deployments, offline app export, audio notes and activity logs for tracking team usage.
The free, open-source Community Edition can be self-hosted with no licensing cost, giving privacy-conscious teams full control of their data. The commercial cloud Lite plan starts at $2 per month plus $1.50 per additional user and $0.50 per GB of storage, while the Pro plan starts at $3 per month plus $2.50 per user and adds AI chat, AI summaries and access to premium databases like Scopus and ScienceDirect.
Organizations that need on-premises deployment behind their own firewall can choose a Pro Self-Hosted license, priced at $36 per year per user or $126 per user as a one-time perpetual license, delivered via container-based deployment with optional paid email support.
Yes, a free Community Edition is available on GitHub for self-hosting; commercial cloud and self-hosted Pro tiers add AI features and premium database access.
The cloud Lite plan starts at $2/month plus $1.50 per user and $0.50/GB storage; Pro starts at $3/month plus $2.50 per user; self-hosted Pro licenses run $36/year per user or $126 per user as a one-time perpetual license.
I, Librarian is developed by Scilico, LLC, a Dallas, Texas-based software company.
Yes, it integrates search across Crossref, Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, PubMed Central, IEEE, NASA and a large patent database.
Yes, its Pro tier includes AI-generated paper summaries and AI chat for querying across a user's entire document library.
Yes, both a free open-source Community Edition and a paid Pro Self-Hosted license are available for on-premises deployment.