Unpaywall runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 73 installs a week from pypi. Last commit 4 Jul 2026.
Open-access availability for 120M+ scholarly articles via the Unpaywall API
Nothing serious here today
Today is the operative word: we check Unpaywall every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.
Connect this server
This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.
claude mcp add unpaywall -e 'UNPAYWALL_EMAIL=<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL>' -- uvx unpaywall-mcp-server{
"mcpServers": {
"unpaywall": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"unpaywall-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"UNPAYWALL_EMAIL": "<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL>"
}
}
}
}[mcp_servers.unpaywall]
command = "uvx"
args = ["unpaywall-mcp-server"]
env = { UNPAYWALL_EMAIL = "<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL>" }{
"mcpServers": {
"unpaywall": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"unpaywall-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"UNPAYWALL_EMAIL": "<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL>"
}
}
}
}{
"servers": {
"unpaywall": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"unpaywall-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"UNPAYWALL_EMAIL": "<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL>"
}
}
}
}Put your own value in place of
<UNPAYWALL_EMAIL> (Your email address — required by the Unpaywall API as an identifier (no API key needed). See https://unpaywall.org/products/api).
The author’s registry entry marks it as required.
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Unpaywall — questions
Answers built from our own checks of this server.