Gotham vs Indian Kanoon · checked 4 October 2026

An Indian Kanoon alternative
for the work after the search.

Indian Kanoon is India's best-known free search engine for Indian law, and since December 2025 it sells Prism, a set of AI tools. Gotham is a full workspace: research, drafting, review, matters and filing, with Indian law and the law of 90+ countries.

Test both on one live matter →See Gotham pricing

Disclosure: Gotham publishes this comparison. Facts about Indian Kanoon come only from the public pages linked under Sources, checked on 4 October 2026. “Not published” means we did not find it there, not that it does not exist. If something here is out of date, write to legal@trygotham.io and we will correct it.

The short answer

Choose Gotham if you are a firm of any size, from chambers to a large multi-office firm, and you want to take the research into the rest of the matter: drafting in court format, document review, case tracking, chronologies and filing, with security certifications, your data stored in India, and the law of 90+ countries as well.

Stay with Indian Kanoon if you mainly need to find and read Indian judgments and laws, for free or at a very low price. Indian Kanoon's search, cross-links and judgment structure are free, and Premium with its Prism AI tools costs ₹5,000 a year plus GST.

Gotham vs Indian Kanoon, side by side

What to compare	Gotham	Indian Kanoon
What it is	A legal operating system: research, drafting, review and filing in one workspace.	A search engine for Indian law, with Prism AI research and drafting tools on paid plans.
Indian coverage	365 million Indian legal documents: the Supreme Court, all 25 High Courts, tribunals and regulators, in 22 scheduled languages. Search by SCC, AIR or neutral citation.	Over 3 crore (30 million) documents according to its site: the Supreme Court, High Courts, tribunals, two district courts, and Union, state and municipal laws. Its February 2026 blog says 4 crore.
Law outside India	US and UK case law and legislation, plus official court, legislation, regulator and tax sources from 90+ countries and territories. Pick the countries for each question.	Not covered, apart from UN conventions and international treaties.
Free tier	Searching and reading judgments and Acts, and opening the original court PDF, are free with an account.	Search, advanced search, cross-links and judgment structure are free, plus 25 court copies a month and 2 alerts.
AI research	Gotham AI answers with citations to the paragraph. An agentic citator shows how later judgments treated each point of a case. Deep Research with a plan you approve.	Prism: Know Your Kanoon answers questions from its database with linked judgments, plus document chat and outcome predictions.
Drafting and review	Drafting in court formats, redlines and a Word add-in, on Gotham Pro. Tabular Review across a whole data room, and contract review against your firm's playbook.	Doc Gen Hub: drafts from 80+ Indian templates, and Standard, Risk and Negotiation review of your documents.
Matters and filing	Matters, chronologies, case tracking by CNR, a hearing diary, eSign and e-stamp in the same workspace.	Notes on documents (NoteIK) and daily alerts. No matters, chronologies or filing tools are described.
Citator	An agentic citator built on a legal ontology: treatment point by point (followed, distinguished, doubted, overruled, referred to a larger bench), with the passage, and bench strength applied.	"Cited by" and "Cites" links on every document, and labels for how a court viewed each citation: relied on by a party, accepted, viewed negatively, or no clear view.
Security	SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. Data stored in your own country. Never used to train AI. SSO, SAML and SCIM.	No certifications published. Its privacy policy says Prism conversations go to LLM providers and data may be processed outside your country.
Pricing	Junior for one lawyer: ₹499 a month or ₹3,999 a year plus GST in India; $9 a month or $79 a year elsewhere. Gotham Pro: priced with your firm.	Premium ₹5,000 a year and Pro ₹15,000 a year, plus 18% GST. Monthly plans from ₹500. An API from ₹0.50 per search.

Products change often. Ask both vendors to show each point in a live demo, and put anything important in the contract.

Why teams choose Gotham

An agentic citator for Indian law

India is the most complicated jurisdiction to get right. Gotham's legal ontology records each holding, bench and statute version. Its agents read every later judgment that cites a case and show, point by point and with the passage, whether it was followed, distinguished, doubted or overruled.

From research to filing

Gotham takes the research into the matter: draft in the court's format, review a data room in a sheet, build the chronology, track the case by CNR, then stamp, sign and file.

Security for client work

Gotham holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, stores data in your own country (India for Indian customers) and never uses your data to train AI. Indian Kanoon publishes no certifications.

Indian law and 90+ countries in one place

Firms with cross-border work can research Indian law next to the law of 90+ countries and territories in the same workspace.

Built for large firms

Shared matters, roles and ethical walls. SSO, SAML and SCIM. Firm workflows, playbooks and a library of agent skills. SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and data stored in your own country. Gotham Pro is priced with your firm.

What Indian Kanoon does well

Free search that everyone knows

Indian Kanoon has been free since 2008. Searching and reading judgments and laws, cross-links between cases and the structure of each judgment cost nothing, and most Indian lawyers already use it.

A very low price for AI tools

Premium, with the Prism AI tools, costs ₹500 a month or ₹5,000 a year plus GST.

A cheap developer API

Developers can search its database for ₹0.50 a request, with ₹500 of free credit to start.

How to test both fairly

Pick one real, bounded piece of work, not a demo question.
Give both products the same documents and the same question.
Agree beforehand what a good answer needs: the right authorities, pinpoint citations, the right format.
Have a qualified lawyer check every answer against the source.
Time the corrections, not just the first draft.
Check permissions, data deletion, exports and audit logs as well as output quality.

Ask both the same research question from a live matter, then check that every citation opens the right paragraph of the right judgment, and see how far each tool takes you towards the final draft.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Gotham if

You need drafting, review and matters, not only search.
Client confidentiality needs certifications and data stored in India.
You also work on the law of other countries.
You want research and the rest of the matter in one workspace.

Stay with Indian Kanoon if

You mainly search and read judgments and laws.
Free or very cheap matters most.
You need a low-cost API for your own tools.
You are a student preparing for exams or moots.

Questions

Is Indian Kanoon free?

Yes. Indian Kanoon's search, advanced search and reading are free. Its Premium plan, with the Prism AI tools, costs ₹5,000 a year plus GST. Gotham also lets you search and read judgments and Acts for free once you create an account.

How does Gotham's price compare with Indian Kanoon Premium?

Indian Kanoon Premium is ₹500 a month or ₹5,000 a year plus GST. Gotham Junior is ₹499 a month or ₹3,999 a year plus GST, with 300 Gotham AI credits a month, matters, document questions and case tracking.

Does Indian Kanoon have AI?

Yes. Since December 2025, Indian Kanoon sells Prism, eight AI tools for research, drafting, document review and outcome prediction, on its paid plans.

Can I use Gotham and Indian Kanoon together?

Yes. Many lawyers keep a free search engine open. Gotham is useful when the research has to become a draft, a review, a chronology or a filing.

Sources and methodology

Checked 4 October 2026. Facts about Indian Kanoon come from the pages below. Facts about Gotham come from Gotham’s own product, pricing and security pages.

More comparisons: all Gotham comparisons.

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An Indian Kanoon alternativefor the work after the search.