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Most people reach for Claude or ChatGPT Plus since both handle PDFs directly and produce coherent summaries without losing key details, though I'd verify the current file size limits since those change. Claude tends to be slightly better at technical papers in my experience, but honestly it depends on what you're working with - if you're dealing with dense math-heavy research, you might want to test both before committing. Some folks also use specialized tools like Elicit or ResearchRabbit if you're doing literature reviews and need to compare multiple papers at once.
If you're dealing with dense academic papers, try uploading to Claude or ChatGPT Plus first - they handle PDFs natively and tend to preserve nuance better than lighter tools. One thing that actually works surprisingly well though: if a paper's giving you trouble, paste just the abstract and conclusion into your tool first, let it build the skeleton, then feed it the full text and ask it to fill in critical methods or evidence gaps. Saves time and you catch way more because the AI isn't drowning in a wall of text from the start.
Don't waste time on generic summarization sites that strip formatting and miss citations - you'll lose half the value. Since the others already covered the big names, one thing worth trying if you're hitting limits is Perplexity, which can ingest PDFs and cross-reference them against sources while summarizing, so you get both the condensed version and verification of claims made in the paper.
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