Alternatives and competitors
Sites like PLOS
The 20 closest open-access academic publishing alternatives to PLOS, ranked by what they actually offer, and the 15 technologies behind it.
Looking for an alternative to PLOS? The closest matches are frontiersin.org, Our World in Data and pnas.org. We match sites by what they actually offer, from their homepages, Wikidata and a summary by Claude, in any language. Vote on each alternative and leave a short note to help the next person choose.
- Neighbours
- k = 20
- Sites searched
- 4,032
- Vector
- 384-d
- Query
- 15 ms
01 · Entity
About PLOS
PLOS plos.org
Leading the future of open science publishing - PLOS
Discover how we are transforming scholarly publishing with a mission-driven commitment to open science, research integrity, and innovation that benefits researchers, institutions, and society worldwide.
Wikidata: nonprofit open-access publisher
Summary by Claude
PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a nonprofit publisher of peer-reviewed open-access scientific journals covering biology, medicine, public health, sustainability and other disciplines, funded largely by article processing charges.
- Who it’s for
- Researchers, academics, librarians, funders
- Business model
- Article processing charges
02 · Embedding space
Competitor map
Each alternative by how close its vector is to PLOS’s (x) and how much traffic it gets, how much of the stack it shares, or where it sits in the embedding space itself (y). Lines split each axis at the median. Hover for the numbers, click to jump to it in the list.
similarity × popularity
03 · Nearest neighbours
Alternatives to PLOS
Thumbs up if it’s a real alternative to PLOS, thumbs down if it isn’t.
- 01
Frontiers | Publisher of peer-reviewed articles in open access journals
Open access publisher of peer-reviewed scientific articles across the entire spectrum of academia. Research network for academics to stay up-to-date with the latest scientific publications, events, blogs and news.
Very close cos 0.903 - 02
Our World in Data
Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.
- Cloudflare
- Cloudflare DNS
- Google Search Console
- Cloudflare Web Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Workspace
Very close cos 0.902 - 03
academic journal of the National Academy of Sciences
Very close cos 0.900 - 04
Brazil
digital library
Very close cos 0.897 - 05
De Gruyter Brill
De Gruyter Brill | Over 300 years of publishing excellence
Very close cos 0.898 - 06
medRxiv.org - the preprint server for Health Sciences
medRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by openRxiv, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing scientific communication
Very close cos 0.896 - 07
Nature
First published in 1869, Nature is the world’s leading multidisciplinary science journal. Nature publishes the finest peer-reviewed research that drives ground-breaking discovery, and is read by thought-leaders and decision-makers around the world.
Very close cos 0.897 - 08
database of biomedical research
Close cos 0.892 - 09
ProPublica — Investigative Journalism and News in the Public Interest
ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
Close cos 0.891 - 10
OSF
tools that make open science practice easier
Close cos 0.891 - 11
EurekAlert! Science News Releases
EurekAlert! is an online science news service featuring health, medicine, science and technology news from leading research institutions and universities. Sponsored by AAAS, the science society.
Close cos 0.892 - 12
Sage - a global academic publisher of educational resources | Home
Sage is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and digital resources to support teaching, learning and research
Close cos 0.888 - 13
Pew Research Center | Nonpartisan, nonadvocacy, public opinion polling and data-driven social science research
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Close cos 0.889 - 14
Client Challenge
distributor of eBooks and other digital media
Close cos 0.890 - 15
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Our work helps shape sound policies, inform public opinion, and advance the pursuit of science, engineering, and medicine.
Close cos 0.887 - 16
ScienceDirect
journal
Close cos 0.888 - 17
Zenodo
research data repository
Close cos 0.886 - 18 Close cos 0.885
- 19
ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news
Breaking science news and articles on global warming, extrasolar planets, stem cells, bird flu, autism, nanotechnology, dinosaurs, evolution -- the latest discoveries in astronomy, anthropology, biology, chemistry, climate & environment, computers, engineering, health & medicine, math, physics, psychology, technology, and more -- from the world's leading universities and research organizations.
Close cos 0.889 - 20
Scientific American
Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.
- Google Search Console
- Amazon CloudFront
- GlobalSign
- Google Tag Manager
- Meta Business Suite
- Amazon Route 53
Close cos 0.889
Ranked by score: the cosine similarity of each site’s vector to plos.org’s, less a small penalty for generic sites that are close to everything. Highlighted technologies are ones PLOS uses too. Votes and comments come from visitors and don’t change the ranking.
04 · Fingerprints
Technology
What PLOS is built with, and what its closest competitors use, from its homepage’s code and its DNS records.
Built with
- CMS
- WordPress meta generator: WordPress 7.1.4
- JavaScript frameworks
- React page source: data-reactroot
- JavaScript libraries
- jQuery asset https://plos.org/wp-content/themes/plos/resources/lib/scripts/jquery-3.5.1.min.js?ver=3.5…
- Fonts
- Google Fonts asset https://fonts.googleapis.com/
- Advertising
- X (Twitter) Pixel page source: static.ads-twitter.com/uwt.js
- Marketing automation
- HubSpot page source: js.hs-scripts.com
- CDN
- Cloudflare header cf-ray: a562fedfab10af33-HAM
- Hosting
- Kinsta header x-kinsta-cache: HIT
- Languages & backends
- PHP implied by WordPress (meta generator: WordPress 7.1.4)
- Email hosting
- Microsoft 365 MX plos-org.mail.protection.outlook.com
- Email delivery
- SendGrid TXT v=spf1 mx a ip4:136.147.136.128 ip4:184.23.159.2 ip4:216.74.38.68 ip4…
- DNS hosting
- Cloudflare DNS NS chad.ns.cloudflare.com
- SaaS tools (verified in DNS)
- Apple Business TXT apple-domain-verification=rD6IKpFy01dItKGF
- Atlassian TXT atlassian-domain-verification=KBcW5CfwNLAM/0qR7EQaMQ6EpgX44xvccXJeJ0O…
- Google Search Console TXT google-site-verification=g9PQGJfRFNffB4MEiJ_b7sA_J94yIXtFsQa0aHT3u5A
Stack changes
No changes yet. Each new crawl is compared with the last one, and what PLOS adds or drops shows up here.
What competitors use
Across the 20 closest sites.
- Google Search Console 17/20
- Microsoft 365 15/20
- Meta Business Suite · not on plos.org 8/20
- Cloudflare 8/20
- Cloudflare DNS 7/20
- Atlassian 7/20
- Salesforce · not on plos.org 6/20
- Google Tag Manager · not on plos.org 6/20
- Mailchimp · not on plos.org 6/20
- Google Workspace · not on plos.org 5/20
- SendGrid 5/20
- PHP 5/20
- GlobalSign · not on plos.org 5/20
- OpenAI · not on plos.org 4/20
- Apple Business 4/20
- Amazon Route 53 · not on plos.org 4/20