Coverage & accuracy
OpenAlex takes inspiration from the Library of Alexandria: the goal is all research information, centralized in one place. In practice, OpenAlex generally covers everything other databases cover, plus a great deal more — and new sources of metadata are added continually.
Users typically think about data quality along two axes: content coverage (is the work in there?) and metadata correctness (is what’s recorded about it right?). This page covers both.
What OpenAlex includes
OpenAlex indexes diverse types of research output — articles, books, datasets, dissertations, and more — across all areas of scholarship, including fields underrepresented in other databases (social sciences, humanities, business, law), in any language. You can explore coverage yourself in the web interface.
Comparison with other databases
| Works | Open Access works | Citations | Price | Data openness | Org structure | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | 322M | 121M | 2.5B+ | Freemium | Fully open, CC0 | Non-profit |
| Scopus | 97M | 25M | Subscription | Closed | For-profit | |
| Web of Science (core) | 92M | 24M | 2.2B | Subscription | Closed | For-profit |
| Dimensions | 177M | 35M | Freemium | Partly open, personal use | For-profit | |
| Google Scholar | 389M (estimated) | ? | ? | Free | Closed | For-profit |
| Crossref | 166M | 59M | Free | Fully open, CC0 | For-profit |
A growing number of peer-reviewed studies compare coverage directly; start with Culbert et al. 2024, Alperin et al. 2024, and Maddi et al. 2024 — they generally find OpenAlex is a superset of the more established databases.
Books
Books are a foundational research output for all scholarship, and especially for the social sciences, humanities, and arts. OpenAlex indexes about 6 million scholarly books (explore them) — more than comparable databases — and coverage keeps improving thanks to open initiatives like the Directory of Open Access Books and Thoth Open Metadata.
DataCite records
DataCite is a core, trusted source: OpenAlex indexes over 37 million works with DataCite records — datasets, software, and other outputs registered there. Track the current breakdown with this query.
Patents
OpenAlex does not index patents. Patent coverage has consistently ranked low among user and subscriber priorities; if it’s important to you, tell us why at support@openalex.org.
Metadata accuracy
Bibliometric experts worldwide rely on OpenAlex for research. Studies of metadata quality find that for works appearing in all databases, quality is comparable (Culbert et al. 2024), and that analyses replicated across databases produce largely identical results (Alperin et al. 2024).
No database is perfect, and all rely on curation from their communities. OpenAlex lets anyone report and fix metadata errors — with one important difference from proprietary databases: a fix made in OpenAlex stays open and propagates to every downstream system, instead of staying locked inside one vendor’s product while the same error lives on everywhere else.
Use in university rankings
Three mainstream university ranking exercises use OpenAlex data:
- CWTS Open Leiden Ranking — the open counterpart of the Leiden Ranking, with a public dashboard comparing rankings built on Web of Science vs. OpenAlex.
- Financial Times business school rankings — see also the FT’s profile of OpenAlex.
- THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings — bibliometric indicators of interdisciplinarity built on OpenAlex data (methodology).
Rankings adoption matters beyond exposure: it showcases open, globally comprehensive data, and it brings universities into the curation loop, further improving the dataset.
Checking specific papers
To check whether OpenAlex has a particular paper, paste its title or DOI into the openalex.org search bar (try doi:10.1111/j.1529-8817.2012.01224.x). At scale, look works up in bulk through the API or convert DOI lists to OpenAlex IDs with a tool like the Open Research Converter; there’s a step-by-step recipe at Check if a journal’s works are in OpenAlex. Works without DOIs need title/author matching, which is trickier.