| Web of Science vs. Scopus vs. Google Scholar vs. Dimensions | ||||
| (Last updated April 25, 2025) | ||||
| Web of Science Core Collection1 | Scopus2 | Google Scholar | Dimensions3 | |
| Total records | 95+ million | 90.6+ million | Unknown | 147+ million |
| Journals | >22,619+ total (~7,500 are from ESCI) | 27,950 active titles 15,450 inactive titles | Unknown | 77,471 4 |
| Preprints | Yes - via Preprint Citation Index | Unknown | Unknown | Yes |
| Books | 157,000+ | 292,000; 1,167 book series | Number unknown, but is integrated with Google Books | 116,643 books/edited books; 300,408 monographs5 |
| Proceedings | 10.5 million | 11.7+ million conf papers | Unknown | 8.8 million |
| 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 | 1665-present |
| 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 | 14% of the publications are non-English6 |
| Update frequency | Daily | Daily | Unknown | Daily (ca. 2-3 days after deposit in CrossRef) |
| Author Profiles | Yes – algorithm generated | Yes – algorithm generated | Yes – author created | Yes – algorithm generated |
| Citation Analysis | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mark Records | Yes | Yes | Yes – requires Google Account login | Yes – requires registering to use this feature |
| Export Records | Yes - en masse | Yes - en masse | Copy/Paste only | Yes – requires registering to use this feature |
| 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 | Significantly more publications than WoS or Scopus |
| Organization name unification | Larger coverage of Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities than WoS7 | Finds more citations than any other database in this table, regardless of subject area8 | Larger coverage of Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities than WoS and Scopus9 | |
| 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 | Includes clinical trials, grants, datasets and policy documents | |
| Includes altmetrics when available | Integrated with ReadCube Papers and Altmetric | |||
| 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 | Missing citation links are a significant problem in Dimensions12 |
| 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 titles10 | Limited advanced searching features | Dimensions has a larger % of articles missing metadata – noticeably author affiliations13 | |
| Cloned DOI's - identical number on multiple papers11 | Difficult to narrow down common author name searches | The search interface is very different and may confuse users | ||
| Have to create a GS profile to create reports | Complex Boolean searches for systematic reviews may require using their API 14 | |||
Notable Content Changes
Due to major changes in content coverage changes for these databases post-2015, and the launching of Dimensions in 2018, data from older research studies is outdated and has been replaced/updated in this chart. All database providers (with the exception of Google Scholar which is a black box) have been very responsive to identified issues and weaknesses and have made improvements to eliminate some of them.
Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) was launched in late 2015. As a result, the Web of Science Core Collection now covers many more non-English, non-U.S. publications along with newly emerging disciplines and interdisciplinary studies than it has in the past.
In 2023, all ESCI journals began being assigned a Journal Impact Factor.®
Scopus: “In 2015, Scopus recognized 1996 as a watershed year for coverage and added 4 million earlier articles and associated references into the system.”15
[1] Some data in this column is from Resources for Librarians and Administrators - https://clarivate.libguides.com/librarianresources/coverage. Last updated March 2025. Where possible, the comparison chart above has included information on which Web of Science data points include or exclude Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).
[2] Some data in this column is from The Scopus Content Coverage Guide - https://blog.scopus.com/posts/the-scopus-content-coverage-guide-a-complete-overview-of-the-content-coverage-in-scopus-and - updated March 2023.
[3] Dimensions. Why Dimensions? June 2024. https://www.dimensions.ai/dimensions-data/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuvqQqdG-jAMVxxWtBh321CrzEAAYAiABEgIvPvD_BwE – scroll down the page. [This provides a content comparison with Dimensions, Scopus, Web of Science, and Open Alex – with notes at the bottom about data sources used.] Note that Dimensions does not: define what “publications” covers; give a category for “number of journals”; say whether Web of Science numbers are just the Core Collection or also include ESCI.
[4] Singh, Vivek Kumar, et al. (2021). The journal coverage of Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions: A comparative analysis.” Scientometrics,126(6): 5113-5142. doi: 10.1007/s11192-021-03948-5. On page 5117 they state that “Dimensions contains more than 74,000 journal entries”; however, 3 other places in the article state the Dimensions journal list “contained 77,471 entries.”
[5] Singh, et al. (2021). See p.5123.
[6] Visser, Martijn, van Eck, Nees Jan, Waltman, Ludo. (2021). Large-scale comparison of bibliographic data sources: Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, Crossref, and Microsoft Academic. Quantitative Science Studies 2 (1): 20–41. doi: 0.1162/qss_a_00112. [Note: this study did not include Emerging Sources Index.] See p.33 for non-English data.
[7] Singh, Vivek Kumar, et al. (2021). See p.5133-5134.
[8] Martín‑Martín, Alberto, et al. (2021). Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus, Dimensions, Web of Science, and OpenCitations’ COCI: a multidisciplinary comparison of coverage via citations. Scientometrics, 126:871-906. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03690-4. [Google Scholar found 88% of all citations, followed by Microsoft Academic (which is now defunct), Scopus, Dimensions, then Web of Science. This study used the Web of Science Core Collection which included Emerging Sources Citation Index.]
[9] Singh, Vivek Kumar, et al. (2021). See p.5133-5134.
[10]Franceschini, Fiorenzo, et al. (2016). “Empirical Analysis and Classification of Database Errors in Scopus and Web of Science.” Journal of Infometrics, 10(4):933-953. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.07.003
[11] Franceschini, Fiorenzo, et al. (2016). “The Museum of Errors/Horrors in Scopus.” Journal of Infometrics, 10(1):174-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.006
[12] Visser, Martijn, van Eck, Nees Jan, Waltman, Ludo. (2021). See p.37.
[13] Basson, Isabel, et al. (2022, Mar 31). “The effect of data sources on the measurement of open access: A comparison of Dimensions and the Web of Science.” PLOS One, >https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265545. [Note: it compares only the open access article coverage in these databases.]
[14] Martín‑ Martín, Alberto, et al. (2021). Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus, Dimensions, Web of Science, and OpenCitations’ COCI: a multidisciplinary comparison of coverage via citations. Scientometrics, 126:871-906. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03690-4.
[15] Beatty, S. (2015). “Breaking the 1996 barrier: Scopus adds nearly 4 million pre-1996 articles and more than 83 million references.” Scopus Blog. https://blog.scopus.com/posts/breaking-the-1996-barrier-scopus-adds-nearly-4-million-pre-1996-articles-and-more-than-83
Mouse over each link to see the full citation.
