Litra Paper Search vs Refd

In-depth architectural comparison of the Litra Paper Search and Refd MCP servers. Compare execution transports, security boundaries, tool capabilities, quality scores, and ready-to-paste client installation snippets for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.

Which MCP Server Should You Choose?

Choose Litra Paper Search when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Research domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).

Explore Litra Paper Search Details

Choose Refd when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Research domain.
• You prefer remote streaming HTTP/SSE transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).

Explore Refd Details

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	Litra Paper Search Research	Refd Research
Summary	MCP server for Litra.ai – AI-powered academic paper search with relevance scoring and summarization	Read AI search visibility, competitors, citations, prompts, and answer evidence from refd.
Category & Scope	Research	Research
Quality signal

Tools & Capabilities Breakdown

Ready-to-Paste Client Configurations

Paste either (or both) of these JSON server blocks into your client config file (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "litra-paper-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "litra-paper-search-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "refd": {
      "url": "https://api.refd.ai/mcp"
    }
  }
}

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