Research impact & bibliometrics · Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University
VOSviewer
Free desktop tool for building and visualizing bibliometric networks such as co-citation and co-authorship maps.
VOSviewer is a free Java desktop application from Leiden University's CWTS that turns bibliometric data into network maps: co-authorship, co-citation, bibliographic coupling and keyword co-occurrence, rendered as cluster-density visualizations rather than raw node-link diagrams. It imports data directly from Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, PubMed, OpenAlex and Lens.org exports, so it functions as a visualization and clustering layer on top of whichever citation index a researcher already has access to, rather than a database itself. It also does basic term extraction from titles and abstracts for co-occurrence mapping. It is free to download and widely used in bibliometrics teaching and research-landscape studies, but it is not open-source software and offers no API or cloud version.
At a glance
| Vendor | Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University |
|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Deployment | Self-hosted |
| Open source | No |
| Best for | Bibliometricians and research-landscape analysts who need free network visualization on top of existing citation data. |
Pricing
Free desktop download with no paid tier.
Pricing has not been verified yet — see the vendor's site.
Features
- Co-authorship, co-citation and bibliographic-coupling network maps
- Cluster-density visualization
- Keyword and term co-occurrence mapping from titles/abstracts
- Direct import from Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, PubMed, OpenAlex
- Time-overlay and citation-overlay visualizations
- High-resolution image and network-file export
Integrations
Profile last reviewed September 21, 2026