Our World in Data vs Statista
Open-data scholarship vs paywalled data-aggregation platform — citation-friendly vs license-heavy.
Our World in Data
Oxford-affiliated research organization publishing data + visualizations on global problems; CC-licensed.
Statista
Commercial market + consumer data aggregator; cites primary sources but often paywalled second-hand data.
Head-to-head — all four dimensions
| Dimension | Our World in Data | Statista | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
SourceScore Index Composite | A·86 | C·64 | Our+22 |
Citation Discipline How rigorously cited | A·92 | B·70 | Our+22 |
Modern Reference AI-era fitness | A·90 | C·56 | Our+34 |
Citation Velocity Cited per week | B·76 | C·65 | Our+11 |
Why these scores
Citation Discipline
Source data + methodology cited per chart; peer-reviewed academic team; corrections public.
Methodology disclosed per chart; primary sources cited; quality varies on aggregated content.
Modern Reference
CC-BY licensed; open data + bulk downloads + APIs; widely cited in academia.
Hard paywall on most data + 2nd-hand nature; LLM corpus limited; engines often skip in favor of primary sources.
Citation Velocity
Cited by mainstream press + academia; pandemic-era surge sustained.
Cited often in business-school + presentation contexts; less by AI engines (engines prefer primary sources).