Of course, RG. Because you can see all of the researcher's academic activities at RG. In addition, you want to do a research question about the research before you can get feedback. RG is a scientific discussion platform. For all these reasons RG.

I would recommend RG for science and engineering and Academia for History and Archeology.

Would you recommend researchgate or academia.edu?

Generally both are useful research platforms but personally I feel more comfortable with RG as I find RG is more like a repository + collaboration platform vs Academia.edu which is more focusing on repository.

You can also refer to the following link for your reference:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_your_impressions_on_ResearchGate_versus_Academiaedu_versus_Mendeley12

Definitely RG! Although I have an account in Academia, also...

Here is interesting discussion on RG vs Academia:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_your_impressions_on_ResearchGate_versus_Academiaedu_versus_Mendeley12

I agree with answer of @Sayantan Mukherjee who says for RG:

"1. Better visibility of your research work. 2. Q&A section for better discussion in a particular issue. 3.Very good statistical analysis of our research work. 4.Availability of research papers. 5. Sharing knowledge with well known researchers and scientists and professors. 6. It is very helpful for young researchers to promote or to show their research work."

Furthermore, the premium account of Academia is very annoying...

PS. Sorry, @Han Ping Fung, I didn't saw that the link you gave is the same as mine.

Personally, I prefer ResearchGate for the same reasons stated in the previous answers. But for my students, I will recommend both RG and Academia and every other platform of similar nature for them to be more exposed to research works.

It is worth to try both and even similar platforms; I would set no artificial limit. Empirical testing will show the limits of each platform, but this heaviliy depends on your direction of research and communication preferences. The commercialization of all these platforms is another factor, which should be observed carefully, i.e. the monopolization of information for economic rent or 'cyber landlordship'.

To me, RG represents a wealth of skills, diverse disciplines and professional backgrounds, it helps develop originality and diversity in student-teacher thinking. It's the powerful interdisciplinary experience in dealing with significant problems.A thousand thanks to all!

Ahhhh... Again? Always for RG. The package of RG (training in research & academic teaching, collaborations in research, mentorship, friendship etc.) is unparrelled.

Dickson Adom

Dear,

I prefer and recomend RG.

Regards.

I really recommend RG ...

Personally, ResearchGate (RG).

I also agree with Dr. Han Ping Fung comment.

Emad

I agree with Dr. Emad.

Dear Zeeshan Hamid,

I recommend my students Research gate because I'm having trouble uploading works on Academia.edu.

Definitely RG. I have accounts on Google Scholar, RG and Academia.edu.

For better comparion please refer to:

Steven Ovadia, ResearchGate and Academia.edu: Academic Social Networks. Journal Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2014.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639269.2014.934093?src=recsys&journalCode=wbss20

Please note because each of these tools focuses on fulfilling a different set of needs, caters to a specific audience (diverse communities), and provides a variety of different metrics, it stands to reason that they should reflect different sides of academic impact. Each platform becomes then a mirror reflecting the likeness of the communities that use it. Not all platforms have a homogenous coverage of all scientific disciplines. Likewise, their user bases aren’t uniform either.

I think both are useful

Acedemia has not been useful to me since I have an account there. Maybe because of their premium package or so. RG gives everyone an enabling environment to share views and ideas with other researchers.

Both usefull, but I recommend RG

RG integrates a collaborative platform for sharing works and research, and a professional networking concept.

I recommend RG.

Dear Zeeshan Hamid

For me, RG is not related to any publisher you can find all types of publication in all scientific journals, unlike Academia.edu.

-- BOUSSETTA

To me, RG is more alive as it offers an intense exchange of opinions, discussions. For example, a freshman can easily ask a question and immediately get an answer from a professor or someone skilled.

By the way, academia and RG are the only social nets for reseachers?

Yes, both are useful, but I also recommend RG

To me, RG represents a wealth of skills, diverse disciplines and professional backgrounds, it helps develop originality and diversity in student-teacher thinking.

both of them

In the link below, you can see an encouragement of using ResearchGate, and removing all the research articles from the for-profit company, Academia.edu.

http://fossilsandshit.com/researchgate-academia-edu-and-bigger-problems-with-scholarly-publishing/

Both of them are useful, but I mainly prefer RG, because it is more useful than from all.

I recommend both RG and Academia and every other platform of similar nature for them to be more exposed to research works.

Dr. Hadeel,

Thank you for sharing an interesting article. However, I think RG is indeed a very good platform where you can simply ask questions related to research or your field of interest and many would be willing to help you. I have never been on Academia.edu except when I had to upload few papers.

Thank you!

Dear All,

Thank you very much for your comments. Indeed, I found this platform very helpful. However, as one researcher commented that she cannot share some of her articles due to copyright, therefore, not everyone's articles full text is available. It is unfortunate that journals demand high prices from those who does not have any affiliation with University and researching independently. In such case, RG is a best source to request for a full text directly from authors. I have had good fortune that almost all the articles that I requested were sent by authors. I appreciate those who does this practice and on the other hand I understand if someone does not share their article due to the copyright. No hard feelings.

Personally I did not share academia, so up to now I prefer RG. Regards

My associates write on RG.

Dear All,

Here is some more information on Academia (A) vs. ResearchGate (RG).

Academia.edu website worth is $ 2,602,073 (est.) vs. Researchgate.net website worth is $ 6,938,915 (est.)

Estimated Website Traffic & Revenue (A vs. RG):

• Daily Unique Visitors: 672,000 vs. 1,411,055
• Daily Pageview: 1,142,400 vs. 3,104,320
• Avg. Time On Site: 2:22 vs. 2:38
• Daily Ads Revenue: $2,285 vs. $6,209
• Monthly Ads Revenue: $68,544 vs. $186,259
• Yearly Ads Revenue: $822,528 vs. $2,235,110

Site Visibility (A vs. RG):

• Google Index Count: 8,690,000 vs. 34,500,000

… …

• Alexa Rank: 652 vs. 291

… …

1st value is from: http://www.siteprice.org/website-worth/academia.edu

2nd value is from: http://www.siteprice.org/website-worth/researchgate.net

There is a lot of useful information about (A) and (RG) at these links like Top 10 Visitors Percentage By Countries, etc.

Nevertheless, the lower Alexa Rank (powered by Amazon.com) I really prefer RG than Academia.

I am on both !!!!

I am active on RG though

Both are good.

But I spend more time with RG.

Definitely, I would prefer and, at the same time, highly recommend researchgate.

If you asked the same question on Academia.eu, the answers would be exactly the opposite.

I agree with those that recommend RG as the main scientific platform to my colleagues and students. RG has no restriction and this is better for its members. However, I would also suggest to join Academia edu, particularly if the current restrictions are removed from the platform.

Both are an excellent scientific platform. But, I'm spending more time in researchgate

Regards

To me RG & academic education cannot not be placed under one coin .RG is a door opening or the members related to achievement in various areas for which they open the gate & offer a platform to carry out the various line of action so that exchange among members of different can share their views .

Academic education is for the educative process for all the members joining with the academic achievement under various part of studies for offending their level & if they desire they may go for research gate

This is my personal opinion

Both are useful. I prefer RG.

Academy.eu gets thumbs down from me, you have to pay for membership now. Researchgate is also much better.

jk

Of course, Researchgate, due to its powerful interaction features which you can't find it in Academia. In addition to the popularity of the researchgate.

RG is more userfriendly site, I recommend RG instead of Academia because of number of users. M

Research Gate...

Both are good platforms to search for scientific works. However, to get the facilities offered by Academia.edu you have to pay periodically. Researchgate website is free, user friendly with a larger popularity, offering very good opportunities for scientific communications. So, I prefer Researchgate.

I say ResearchGate. My students haven't had tremendous difficulty in adapting to its interface and using it for assignments.

Both are good platforms to search for scientific works. However, to get the facilities offered by Academia you have to pay periodically. ResearchGate website is free, user friendly with a larger popularity, offering very good opportunities for scientific communications. So, I prefer ResearchGate.

there are some differences between both of them: for example, in Academia, the papers have more meta data info (even 'organization', 'location', 'event dates' etc). I think it is more structured in terms of how the papers are represented. And they all have previews. Just compare how your papers look here and there. The interface is different. In terms of papers preview and meta data I prefer more Academia. In terms of 'data sharing' the RG is better.

I was never a fan of Academia.edu because of their agressive tactics to make you purchase their premium service, which did not appeal to me. However, I deleted my account today after an incident where they refused to contact a person that was claiming to be the author of one of my publications. Their argument was that person had the same name as one of my former student and co-author of the publication, then their policy is to do nothing. I don't even know if the person was doing this intentionally, but he was claiming to be the author of all the papers matching his name. The person is a young IT manager with no graduate degree but 700+ publications. As a result of this, he is listed in Academia.edu top 1%.

Of course RG, it is easier to connect with people all over the world without paying for membership.

RG didn't attract my attention until I happened to download some helpful research articles conveniently from it. Amazing! The convenience will help to increase readership quickly, which is a fantastic tool to disseminate research findings and build up research networks. Two thumbs up!

RG is user-friendly and it is also a larger repository useful for beginners to experts.

An interesting question. Considering current research problems important for science, I think that the question concerns particularly important issues. I believe that research on this topic should be continued. There was an interesting discussion. Greetings

Everyone wants freewares (or softwares with a crack/serial key)

Academia.edu is proprietary which keep annoying you, by notifying to buy their premium membership.

I wish there were some freewares/websites for checking Plagiarism too, as they cost way too much if someone doesn't know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows another guy who has the www.turnitin.com instructor key.

I agree with most posts here: RG is more of a social network for scientists, Academia more or a repository. Interactions happen much more in RG, and I was also bothered by so much pressure from Academia to buy into their premium.

I asked a similar question recently and I believe that some answers can be relevant to this issue ...

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Research_Gate_or_Academiaedu

Feel free to share your thoughts!

I will definitely recommend research gate over academia because RG is free and easy to use. Academia expect you to put up your publications with them but does not want to give you anything back. You have to pay to access any meaningful service from them.

Researchgate - Always!

... mind you, Academia have incorporated social features in recent times, so it might not be the boringg repository it used one to be... of course, the paying part annoys everyone but still you can get very nice perks there....

Of course, RG. Because you can see all of the researcher's academic activities at RG. In addition, you want to do a research question about the research before you can get feedback. RG is a scientific discussion platform. For all these reasons RG.

I enlarged the discussion so as to encompass also LinkedIn, the big professional network...

https://www.researchgate.net/post/ResearchGate_Academia_or_LinkedIn_Which_one_is_best_to_promote_your_research

Anyhow let's see who is the winner... any interesting partial results?

... students anyhow love googling and I don't think they'd favor RG or Acad.