Semantic Scholar MCP vs Touch Browser

In-depth architectural comparison of the Semantic Scholar MCP and Touch Browser 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 Semantic Scholar MCP when:

• You need dedicated capabilities in the Research domain.
• You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
• Your security boundary fits: API Key required (Free / Open Source).
• You have access to required keys: SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY.
• Primary tools included: 14 typed MCP tools for research workflows, Access to 200M+ Semantic Scholar papers, Citation graph traversal (citations and references).

Explore Semantic Scholar MCP Details

Choose Touch Browser 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).
• Primary tools included: Page-local claim verdicts, Confidence bands and review recommendations, Citation URLs with retrieval timestamps.

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	Semantic Scholar MCP smaniches Research	Touch Browser nangman-infra Research
Summary	Semantic Scholar MCP server: 14 typed tools over 200M+ academic papers — search, paper/author retrieval, citation-graph traversal, and recommendations. uvx s2-mcp-server	Evidence-grounded web research for AI agents. Verifies page-local claims with citations, confidence bands, policy reports, and multi-page session synthesis via MCP.
Category & Scope

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": {
    "smaniches-semantic-scholar-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "s2-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY": "YOUR_SEMANTIC_SCHOLAR_API_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nangman-infra-touch-browser": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@nangman-infra/touch-browser-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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