Research · head to head
Aurelius vs Marvin
Aurelius
Research
UX research repository for tagging notes, building insights and finding them again years later
- From
- $49/month
- Rated
- -
Marvin
Research
Qualitative research repository with AI notetaking, and an MCP server you can query from Claude
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Marvin has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Aurelius aurelius does not recruit participants or run unmoderated studies, so it is always a second tool alongside a testing or recruitment platform and never the whole research budget.; Marvin transcription is inconsistent, with missing punctuation and specifically poor Portuguese accuracy reported, so non-English research teams spend the time cleaning up that the licence was meant to save.
- They diverge on capability: Aurelius covers Research repository, Marvin covers AI Notetaker.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Aurelius and Marvin actually diverge.
Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Research).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Aurelius
- Research repository
- Analysis board
- Tagging
- Insights and recommendations
- Transcription
- AI assist
- Automatic report builder
- Universal search
Only in Marvin
- AI Notetaker
- AI Moderated Interviewer
- Ask AI
- Deep Research
- Thematic and emotion analysis
- Clips and highlight reels
- Virtual observation room
- MCP server and API
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Aurelius
- A research team of three whose findings currently live in individual Miro boards and Google Docs that nobody outside the team can find six months laternot Marvin
- A product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seatsnot Marvin
- A consultancy running discovery for multiple clients that needs tagged evidence kept separate per client but searchable internallynot Marvin
- A team preparing a repeat study who need to know what was already learned about the same problem two years ago before they recruit anyonenot Marvin
Marvin
- A two-person research team that needs interviews transcribed, tagged and searchable without hiring an analyst or buying an enterprise repository.not Aurelius
- A product organisation where findings are never read, wanting product managers to query past research from Claude or ChatGPT instead of logging into a research tool.not Aurelius
- A team running discovery at volume that wants an AI moderator to conduct unmoderated interviews overnight and have them analysed by morning.not Aurelius
- A researcher who needs to send stakeholders a highlight reel of customer quotes rather than a slide deck summarising them.not Aurelius
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Aurelius
- Aurelius does not recruit participants or run unmoderated studies, so it is always a second tool alongside a testing or recruitment platform and never the whole research budget.
- Integrations are thin, with Zapier, Jira and Slack rather than direct connections to the call recording and testing tools most teams already run, so getting material in often means manual upload.
- The tag vocabulary is only as good as the discipline applied to it, and repositories where several researchers invent overlapping tags become unsearchable within a year with no built-in governance to prevent it.
- Unlimited users is genuinely unlimited but permissions are basic below Enterprise, so a team that needs client-safe or stakeholder-only views has to buy the quoted tier for something that reads as a table-stakes control.
- It is a small independent vendor competing with much better funded repositories, which is a real procurement risk for an organisation storing years of research in it, and enterprise assurance material such as penetration test reports sits behind the top tier.
Marvin
- Transcription is inconsistent, with missing punctuation and specifically poor Portuguese accuracy reported, so non-English research teams spend the time cleaning up that the licence was meant to save.
- Speaker diarisation errors attribute moderator speech to the participant, and a misattributed quote propagates into themes and into the insight report you show stakeholders, which is a research credibility risk rather than a cosmetic bug.
- SSO, EU or US data residency, PII redaction and a HIPAA BAA are bundled into a paid Compliance add-on available only from Pro upwards, so the headline Pro quote is never the real price for a regulated or European buyer.
- Starter includes only two full seats, so a four-researcher team is forced to Pro on seat count alone, and the three-way split between full, collaborator and viewer seats makes cost modelling awkward when no paid tier is priced publicly.
- Every paid tier is sales-gated with annual commitment typically required, so there is no monthly paid trial and no published seat cost to budget against before entering a sales cycle.
- Integration coverage has gaps, with no Intercom connector despite repeated requests from teams wanting support conversations in the same repository, and reviewers describe the tags versus labels distinction in the interface as confusing.
Pricing, plan by plan
Aurelius
$49/month- Professional$49/month
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited projects and storage
- Notes, tags and documents
- Premium$199/month
- Everything in Professional
- Recommendations
- Universal search across projects
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Everything in Premium
- SSO with SAML 2.0
- IP allowlisting
Marvin
Free- FreeFree
- 2 full seats and 3 collaborator seats
- 5 file uploads per month
- AI notetaking and transcription
- Starter$undefined/year
- 2 full seats, 10 collaborator seats, 50 viewer seats
- Unlimited uploads
- Thematic analysis
- Pro$undefined/year
- 5 full seats, 15 collaborator seats, 100 viewer seats
- Agentic Ask AI and Deep Research
- Marvin MCP server and API
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- 5 full seats, 15 collaborator seats, unlimited viewer seats
- Salesforce integration included
- Dedicated support
Which should you pick?
Choose Marvin if
- You need ai notetaker.
- You want to start without paying.
- You also want ai moderated interviewer.
Questions people ask
- Is Aurelius or Marvin better?
- Neither clearly leads. Aurelius starts at $49/month and Marvin at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Aurelius or Marvin?
- Marvin has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $49/month for Aurelius and Free for Marvin.
- Does Aurelius or Marvin run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Marvin for free?
- Yes. Marvin has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Aurelius starts at $49/month.
- What is Aurelius best used for?
- Aurelius is most often used for a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later, a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats, a consultancy running discovery for multiple clients that needs tagged evidence kept separate per client but searchable internally, a team preparing a repeat study who need to know what was already learned about the same problem two years ago before they recruit anyone. Of those, a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later and a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats are not what Marvin is typically brought in for.
- What can Aurelius do that Marvin cannot?
- Aurelius covers Research repository, Analysis board, Tagging, Insights and recommendations. Marvin covers AI Notetaker, AI Moderated Interviewer, Ask AI, Deep Research.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Aurelius: Does the price really include unlimited users?
Yes. Professional at 49 US dollars a month and Premium at 199, both billed yearly, both with unlimited users, projects and storage.
Marvin: Is there a genuinely free plan?
Yes. Two full seats, three collaborator seats and five file uploads a month at no cost. It is enough to evaluate the analysis quality on real interviews.
Aurelius: Can I run usability tests in it?
No. Aurelius stores and analyses research; it does not recruit participants or host sessions. Pair it with a testing tool.
Marvin: What does Pro cost?
Not published. Only the Free tier carries a price. Starter, Pro and Enterprise are all quoted.
Aurelius: What is the difference between Professional and Premium?
Premium adds universal cross-project search, collections, recommendations and Zapier. If your value comes from finding old research, Premium is the tier that delivers it.
Marvin: Can I get SSO and EU data residency?
Yes, but as a separately priced Compliance add-on from Pro upwards, not included in any base tier. Price it into the quote from the start.
Aurelius: Is there single sign-on?
Only on Enterprise, along with IP allowlisting, Jira and advanced permissions. Everything below is quoted separately.
Marvin: What is the MCP server for?
It lets Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot query your research repository directly with cited answers, so stakeholders get findings without opening Marvin.
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