Crossref Scraper
150M+ scholarly works, DOIs, and citation metadata
What it does
Search 150 million scholarly works from Crossref by keyword, author, or journal. Returns DOI, title, authors, journal, year, and citation counts. The authoritative DOI registry, no API key required.
Built in
- ✓ Search 150M+ scholarly works by DOI or query
- ✓ Authors, journal, year, and citation counts
- ✓ Authoritative DOI registry metadata
- ✓ Pairs with OpenAlex and OpenCitations
- ✓ Zero charge on empty runs
Guides & tutorials
Crossref API: 150 Million DOIs, Citation Counts, and Bibliographic Data for Free
Crossref is the canonical DOI resolver for 150M+ scholarly works. The REST API returns publication metadata, reference lists, and citation counts with no authentication.
Building an Academic Research Data Stack: Crossref, OpenAlex, and Citation-Aware RAG
How to assemble a literature-review and research-intelligence pipeline from open scholarly data. Search 150M+ works, map citation networks
Common questions
What is Crossref? +
Crossref is the official DOI registration agency for scholarly publishers. When a journal publishes an article and assigns it a DOI, that metadata is registered with Crossref. It covers 150 million+ works.
How is Crossref different from OpenAlex? +
Crossref is the authoritative source for DOI metadata and bibliographic records as reported by publishers. OpenAlex is a discovery tool that aggregates from multiple sources. For reference list accuracy, Crossref is authoritative.
Do I need an API key for Crossref? +
No. The Crossref REST API is free and requires no authentication. Adding a mailto= parameter opts you into the polite pool which has higher rate limits and faster response times.
What fields are available per work? +
DOI, title, authors, publisher, journal title, publication date, ISSN, abstract (where deposited), reference list, cited-by count, and license information.
Can I get citation counts from Crossref? +
Crossref provides references-count (papers this work cites) for free. The is-referenced-by-count (how many papers cite this work) requires a Crossref Plus subscription. For open citation counts, OpenAlex is a free alternative.
Try it on Apify.
Free tier on Apify with 100 results included. No credit card required.