> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.openalex.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

> Download OpenAlex data for local analysis

OpenAlex offers multiple ways to access data beyond the REST API. Choose the approach that best fits your use case.

## When to use the API vs. downloads

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Use the REST API" icon="cloud">
    * Quick lookups and searches
    * Building applications
    * Real-time data needs
    * Most use cases
  </Card>

  <Card title="Use data downloads" icon="download">
    * Large-scale analysis
    * Machine learning training
    * Building local search indexes
    * Offline access requirements
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Download options

### OpenAlex Snapshot

The complete OpenAlex database, available in two formats: gzip-compressed [JSON Lines](https://jsonlines.org/) and [Apache Parquet](https://parquet.apache.org/). The free public snapshot is updated quarterly; [paid plans](https://openalex.org/pricing) get daily-refreshed snapshots and daily change files. Includes works, authors, sources, institutions, topics, publishers, funders, awards, and more.

**Best for:** Full database replication, data warehousing, comprehensive analysis

**Size:** The JSON Lines snapshot is \~330 GB compressed (\~1.6 TB decompressed). Parquet is provided alongside it as a separate copy of the same data, so downloading both roughly doubles the transfer.

[Learn more about the snapshot format](/download/snapshot-format)

### OpenAlex CLI

The official command-line tool for downloading filtered subsets of OpenAlex data.

```bash theme={"dark"}
pip install openalex-official
openalex download \
  --api-key YOUR_KEY \
  --filter "publication_year:2024" \
  --output ./results
```

**Best for:** Downloading specific subsets without the full snapshot

[OpenAlex CLI documentation](/download/openalex-cli)

### Full-text PDFs

Download PDFs and TEI XML for about 60 million works. Requires an API key — content downloads cost \$0.01 per file.

**Best for:** Text mining, content analysis, building corpora

[Full-text PDF documentation](/download/full-text-pdfs)

## Decision tree

```
Do you need the complete database?
├── Yes → Download the snapshot
│         (/download/snapshot-format)
└── No
    ├── Do you need filtered metadata or content files?
    │   ├── Yes → Use the OpenAlex CLI
    │   │         (/download/openalex-cli)
    │   └── No → Use the REST API
    │             (/api-reference/introduction)
    └── Do you need bulk full-text PDFs?
        ├── Yes → See full-text PDF options
        │         (/download/full-text-pdfs)
        └── No → Use the REST API
```

## Getting started

1. **For the snapshot:** Follow the [download instructions](/download/download-to-machine) to get the data to your machine
2. **For the CLI:** Install with `pip install openalex-official` and run `openalex download --help`
3. **For PDFs:** See [full-text PDFs](/download/full-text-pdfs) for the three download options

<Warning>
  Working with the full snapshot is challenging. The dataset is large (330 GB+ compressed) and complex. If you're unsure, start with the REST API — it can answer most questions with much less setup.
</Warning>