PubMed vs PubMed Central vs MEDLINE
PubMed is a free search engine for biomedical citations; MEDLINE is NLM's curated subset of journal articles indexed with MeSH; PubMed Central (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life-sciences articles. They overlap but serve different purposes. For the narrower comparison of PubMed and MEDLINE, see PubMed vs MEDLINE.
Comparison
| Feature | PubMed | MEDLINE | PubMed Central |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Search system for citations and abstracts | Indexed database of selected journals | Archive of free full text |
| Content | MEDLINE plus other citations | Records indexed with MeSH | Full-text articles (many open access) |
| Full text? | Mostly links out | No, citations | Yes |
| Indexing with MeSH? | Only for MEDLINE records | Yes | Not necessarily |
| Inclusion criteria | Various, including PMC content | NLM journal selection process | Deposit by journals, funders or authors, with policies |
What this means
- Searching: search PubMed for citations; remember that not all records have MeSH terms.
- Full text: use PMC or the free full text filter to find open-access versions.
- Citing: cite the article (with DOI), not the database. PMID and PMCID are identifiers of records in PubMed and PMC respectively.
- Publishing: being in PMC does not mean that a journal is in MEDLINE, and vice versa.
Illustrative example
Invented for teaching. A funder-mandated manuscript is deposited in PMC and appears in PubMed with a PMCID but is not MEDLINE-indexed, because the journal was not selected for MEDLINE. A search using only MeSH terms would miss it.
Common pitfalls
- Using the terms interchangeably.
- Assuming that appearing in PubMed signals journal quality.
Key takeaways
- PubMed = search; MEDLINE = curated subset; PMC = free full-text archive.
- Describe your sources accurately.
References and further reading
Related reading
This page is general educational information about research methods. It is not medical, legal or regulatory advice; follow your institution's ethics board and your target journal's instructions.