| Feature | Web of Science | Scopus | Google Scholar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Records | 95+ million | 90.6+ million | 399+ million |
| Journals |
>22,619+ total (~7,500 are from ESCI) |
27,950 active titles 15,450 inactive titles |
Unknown Number |
| PrePrints | Yes - via Preprint Citation Index |
Yes- arXiv, ChemRxiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, TechRxiv, Research Square |
Unknown which Preprint servers are included |
| Books | 157,000+ | 292,000; 1,167 book series | Estimated 25+ million because integrated with Google Books |
| Proceedings | 10.5 million | 11.7+ million conf papers | Yes Unknown Number |
| Period Covered | 1945-present; if Century of Science purchased, coverage goes back to1900 | Records go back to 1788; cited refs for 1970 to present. | Unknown |
| Non-English publications | Yes, if has an English abstract; 4% of the publications are non-English (excluding ESCI) | Yes, if has an English abstract; 20% of publications are non-English | Articles published in many languages |
| Update Frequency | Daily | Daily | Unknow |
| Author Profiles | Yes – algorithm generated | Yes – algorithm generated | Yes – author created |
| Citation Analysis | Yes | Yes | No |
| Mark Records | Yes | Yes | Yes-requires google account |
| Export Records | Yes - en masse limited to 1,000 records at a time | Yes - en masse. Requires Login and limited to 20,000 records at a time | Copy/Paste Only |
| Strengths | Covers "journals of influence.” This has become synonymous with higher quality | Exportable visualizations for author & citation reports | Includes wide range of document types - e.g., theses and white papers |
| Organization name unification | Larger coverage of Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities than WoS | Finds more citations than any other database in this table, regardless of subject area | |
| Ability to search & browse for incorrectly cited references & author name misspellings | Includes trade publications | Wider book coverage than other databases due to Google Books integration | |
| Weaknesses | Covers only "journals of influence" | They are owned by a publisher and may not be neutral in their content inclusion | Questionable content quality and many non-peer-reviewed sources |
| Difficulty searching unusual author name formats: hyphenated, compound names, umlauts, etc.; and, ampersands in journal titles | Errors in reference lists include: author names in wrong order, phantom citations added, transcription errors in author names and article titles | Limited advanced searching features | |
| Cloned DOI's - identical number on multiple papers | Difficult to narrow down common author name searches | ||
| Need to create a GS profile to create reports |
Table adapted from Iowa State University Library's "Scopus vs. Web of Science vs. Google Scholar vs Dimensions" Comparison Chart
