Publish or Perish
Citation metrics on demand — pull an author or topic's impact in seconds.
At a Glance
- Publisher
- Harzing.com (Anne-Wil Harzing)
- Coverage
Not a content database — free software that queries sources like Google Scholar, Scopus, OpenAlex, and Crossref to compute citation metrics (h-index, g-index, and more) (verify current counts).
- Access
Free desktop software.
- Free alternative
- It is free.
- Regional
Global.
Our Take
Publish or Perish is the quick way to get citation metrics for an author, journal, or topic — it queries multiple back ends (Google Scholar, OpenAlex, Scopus, Crossref) and computes the h-index and a battery of other metrics in seconds, which is handy for tenure cases, benchmarking, and CV work. Its numbers are only as good as the source you point it at (Google Scholar inflates; curated indexes are cleaner), so the metric is a starting point, not a verdict. Use it for fast metric snapshots; state your data source and read the caveats before quoting an h-index.
Power Tips
- Choose the data source deliberately — Google Scholar inflates counts versus Scopus or WoS.
- Report which source and date a metric came from; h-index isn’t comparable across sources.
- Use it for quick benchmarking, not as the sole basis for an evaluation.
Alternatives & Complements
Google Scholar, Scopus, OpenAlex, Dimensions
Figures last verified: June 15, 2026