OpenAlex is a free, open catalog of scholarly works, authors, institutions, and their connections. Launched in 2022 as a replacement for the discontinued Microsoft Academic Graph, it now indexes over 320 million works and adds tens of thousands more every day. Unlike commercial Databases like Scopus or Web of Science, it's completely open — anyone can access the data, search it, or use the API without a subscription.

Researchers use it for bibliometric analysis, tracking research output by institution or country, and building custom tools on top of the data. The interface is clean and searchable, but the real value for developers is the API, which makes it possible to query the entire catalog programmatically. For anyone doing meta-research or building academic tools, it's a foundational resource.