Looking for a PubChem alternative?
Find millions of compounds, reactions, properties, and documents
Starting at just $40/month
Quick summary
- Saguaro Chem is a reaction database with synthetic procedures; PubChem is a compound database with property data
- If you need compound properties or bioactivity data, PubChem is still the right tool
- Saguaro Chem answers the "how do I make this compound" question that PubChem does not address
What is Saguaro Chem?
Saguaro Chem is a web-based chemical reaction database built for independent researchers, students, and small labs. Search synthetic procedures, reaction conditions, yields, and source documents by chemical structure, substructure, similarity, or bibliographic metadata — without an institutional subscription.
About PubChem
PubChem is one of the most useful free resources in chemistry. Maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the NIH, it contains compound and substance records with chemical structures, molecular properties, bioactivity data, and links to related scientific literature. For looking up what a compound is and what it does, it is hard to beat. But there is a gap that PubChem does not fill: it does not tell you how to make anything.
You can find a compound in PubChem, see its molecular weight, its IUPAC name, its CAS number, and a list of assays it has been tested in. What you cannot find is a stepwise synthetic procedure, the reaction conditions that worked, the yield someone got, or the passage from the paper where the synthesis was reported. That is where Saguaro Chem comes in.
Is Saguaro Chem a good fit for you?
- Researchers who need reaction search, not just compound lookup
- Chemists who want synthetic procedures and reaction conditions from the literature
- Researchers who want experimental context including yields and source passages
- Anyone who has found a compound in PubChem and then wondered "now how do I actually make it?"
Compound data vs reaction data
PubChem and Saguaro Chem answer different questions. PubChem tells you what a compound is: its structure, properties, identifiers, and bioactivity. Saguaro Chem tells you how to make it: the reactions, procedures, conditions, and yields reported in the literature. If your workflow starts with finding a compound and ends with synthesizing it, you might use PubChem to identify the target and Saguaro Chem to find the route.
Search approach
PubChem supports structure search (substructure, similarity, and exact match) for compounds, which is genuinely useful. Saguaro Chem supports the same types of structure search but applies them to reactions rather than just compounds. You can search for a structure and find reactions where it appears as a reactant, reagent, or product. The search results include the full experimental context: stepwise procedures, conditions, yields, and the source passage from the paper or patent.
When PubChem is still the right choice
PubChem is free, comprehensive, and well-maintained. If your primary need is compound identification, property lookup, or bioactivity data, PubChem is the right tool and there is no reason to stop using it. Saguaro Chem does not try to replace PubChem for compound data. It complements PubChem by covering the reaction and synthesis side that PubChem does not address.
What Saguaro Chem brings to the table
- Search reactions by structure, substructure, or similarity using SMILES, InChI, or the built-in Ketcher drawing tool
- Reaction and bibliographic metadata search by DOI, title, author, or journal
- Results from peer-reviewed journals and patents with full experimental context
- Stepwise synthetic procedures, reaction conditions, yields, and source passages
- No institutional license required. Sign up individually in under two minutes
- Transparent pricing starting at $40/month with a 7-day free trial
A custom chemistry database from 30+ journals and patents
6M+
Compounds
13M+
Reaction passages indexed
15M+
Characterization details
Extracted directly from 30+ top peer-reviewed journals and patent offices including:
- Nat. Chem.
- Organic Letters
- J. Org. Chem.
- Angew. Chem.
- Adv. Synth. Catal.
- Green Chem.
- Chem. Sci.
- USPTO Patents
Coverage is selective but spans a significant portion of each source's reaction literature.
Ready to try Saguaro Chem?
Individual
Individual access to Saguaro Chem
- Structure, substructure & similarity search
- Reaction procedures, conditions, yields & characterization data
- Source documents with DOI & patent links
- No VPN required — use from anywhere
Team
Team access to Saguaro Chem
- Everything in the Individual plan
- 3 seats included, up to 10 total
- Additional seats at $30/month each
- Centralized billing & team management
Enterprise
Custom deployment and integration for organizations
Pricing
Custom pricing for your organization
Tailored to your needs
- Everything in the Team plan, scaled to your org
- SSO / SAML & custom authentication
- Isolated or dedicated hosting options
- API access & custom data pipelines
- Dedicated support & onboarding — let's talk
No price increases without 90 days notice · Cancel any time, one click, no retention loops · Subscriptions auto-renew until cancelled.
All prices in USD. Digitally delivered subscription — access begins immediately after account activation. 7-day free trial requires a credit card; cancel before it ends and you won't be charged. All fees are non-refundable except as required by applicable law. View full subscription & billing terms
Have questions? Learn more about Saguaro Chem or contact us
Frequently asked questions
No. PubChem is funded by the NIH and freely available. Saguaro Chem offers a 7-day free trial, after which individual plans start at $40 per month.
No. PubChem and Saguaro Chem serve different purposes. PubChem is a compound database with property and bioactivity data. Saguaro Chem is a reaction database with synthetic procedures. Many researchers use both together.
PubChem links to related literature but does not extract or display synthetic procedures, reaction conditions, or yields. Saguaro Chem provides stepwise procedures, conditions, yields, and source passages directly in search results.
PubChem contains over 100 million compounds. Saguaro Chem focuses on reactions from peer-reviewed journals and patents rather than maintaining a comprehensive compound registry. The compound coverage overlaps but is not identical.
Saguaro Chem indexes data from over 13 million reaction passages — individual text segments extracted from source literature that describe a reaction. Not all data types are available for every record. Some entries include the raw source passage, others include annotated procedures, reaction schemes, or characterization data, and some may only contain the extracted compounds and their roles in the reaction. The specific data available depends on the source document and extraction quality.
Saguaro Chem indexes experimental reaction information from 30+ peer-reviewed journals, including: ACS Catalysis, ACS Chemical Neuroscience, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, ACS Omega, ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science, Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Asian Journal of Organic Chemistry, Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry, ChemCatChem, ChemMedChem, Chemical Communications, Chemical Science, Chemistry – A European Journal, Chemistry – An Asian Journal, Chinese Journal of Chemistry, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, Green Chemistry, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Molbank, Molecules, Nature Chemistry, Nature Synthesis, New Journal of Chemistry, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, Organic Chemistry Frontiers, Organic Letters, Synlett, Synthesis, Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Letters, The Journal of Organic Chemistry.
Yes. Saguaro Chem currently indexes reaction information from USPTO granted patents. We are actively working to expand patent coverage to additional patent offices in future updates.
Yes. Saguaro Chem extracts and indexes stepwise experimental procedures directly from source literature. Each procedure includes reagents, quantities, reaction conditions, and workup steps where reported, presented in a clean, structured format so you can reproduce the synthesis in the lab.
No. For reactions sourced from academic articles, Saguaro Chem does not display the source text or distribute PDFs. Instead, we try to show as much non-passage context as possible in the form of a reaction scheme and an annotated procedure, along with characterization details where available — though the specific data types available may vary by entry and are not necessarily comprehensive. Each entry links back to its original source so you can access the complete publication or supplementary information on the publisher's website.
Yes. Unlike academic articles, Saguaro Chem does display the raw source passages from patents for reactions sourced from patent literature. Each patent-sourced entry includes the relevant excerpt from the original patent text alongside the structured data, so you can read the procedure, conditions, and characterization details exactly as they appear in the patent.
Yes. We never log the contents of your search queries — no SMILES strings, no structure drawings, no text searches are ever recorded. Our infrastructure is hosted on SOC 2 Type II compliant hosting (Railway), accounts support two-factor authentication via Clerk, and IP addresses are truncated and hashed before any storage.
All payments are handled by our authentication provider, Clerk, which uses Stripe as its underlying payment processor. De Novo Chem never sees, stores, or handles your credit card information — the entire payment flow is managed by Clerk and Stripe.