# Niyam vs Indian Kanoon — Niyam > Honest comparison of Niyam and Indian Kanoon for Indian legal research: AI-grounded Q&A with inline citations and good-law signals vs free, broad access to Indian case law and statutes. Indian Kanoon is a free, publicly accessible search engine for Indian case law and central legislation — widely used across the profession and a genuine public good. It gives every practitioner, student, and citizen access to judgments they would otherwise have to pay for. Niyam is different: it answers your legal question in plain English, cites every proposition to the section or judgment it relied on, shows good-law treatment, and connects research to drafting in one workspace. This page compares them honestly. ## What you can do - Plain-English Q&A — ask and get a cited answer, not a list of documents - Every answer cited to the exact section or paragraph it relied on - Good-law signals and drafting integrated in one workspace ## Capabilities - **Ask the question — get the authority** — Indian Kanoon's full-text search is genuinely useful for finding judgments by keyword, party name, or citation. Niyam is built for a different moment: when you have a legal question rather than a document to find. Ask in plain English; get the governing section and judgment cited directly in the answer. - **Every claim carries its source** — On Indian Kanoon you find the judgment; you then read it to find the paragraph that governs your point. In Niyam, the governing paragraph is cited inline with the answer — you open the source to verify, but you don't have to read the whole judgment to locate the relevant text. - **Know before you rely** — Indian Kanoon has no built-in citator. If you find a case on Indian Kanoon and want to know if it's been overruled, you run a separate search. Niyam builds treatment history into the research answer — every cited case comes with a signal so you never carry an overruled authority into argument. - **Your client matters stay private** — Indian Kanoon is a public search engine — appropriate for general research, but not designed around client matter confidentiality. Niyam is built for professional practice: your queries, matters, and saved research are private to your account, never sold and never used to train public models. ## How it works 1. **Ask in plain English** — Put the legal issue as you would to a colleague. Niyam reads Indian statutes, rules, and judgments to understand what you mean — no keyword syntax. 2. **Get a cited answer** — Every answer comes grounded in primary Indian sources — statute and judgment — with good-law treatment signals on every cited case. 3. **Verify, draft, and save** — Open the cited source, confirm it says what Niyam says, draft from it, and save the authority to the relevant matter — all in one workspace. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Indian Kanoon better than Niyam? For free access to a broad corpus — including tribunals, Revenue Court orders, and older judgments — Indian Kanoon has no equivalent. It is genuinely free, widely accessible, and a public good that has transformed access to Indian case law. If budget is the constraint, Indian Kanoon is the right answer. Niyam is better when you need a cited answer rather than a document to find, good-law signals without a separate lookup, privacy for client matters, or research connected to drafting in one workspace. The ₹100 entry is designed to be accessible, not to compete with free. ### Does Indian Kanoon have a citator? No. Indian Kanoon does not have a built-in citator. If you find a case on Indian Kanoon, checking whether it has been overruled requires running a separate search and reading the results. Niyam builds treatment history into the research answer itself — every cited case comes with a good-law signal. ### Is Niyam's corpus broader than Indian Kanoon? No. Indian Kanoon has a very broad corpus that includes tribunals, boards, and older judgments that Niyam does not currently cover. Niyam indexes more than 72,000 Supreme Court and High Court judgments — the primary sources most practitioners rely on for binding and persuasive authority. If you need very granular tribunal decisions or historical material, Indian Kanoon's breadth is a real advantage. ### Why would I pay ₹100 when Indian Kanoon is free? Indian Kanoon gives you access to documents. Niyam gives you an answer — with the governing section and judgment cited, good-law signals on every cited case, and the ability to draft from the same workspace without switching tools. For practitioners who need a cited answer rather than a document to search, the difference in workflow value justifies the cost. The ₹100 entry is designed to let you verify that for yourself before committing. ### Can I use both Indian Kanoon and Niyam? Yes, and many practitioners do. Indian Kanoon for broad free access and tribunal coverage; Niyam for cited Q&A, good-law signals, and integrated drafting. They address different steps in the research workflow. ### Is this legal advice? No. Niyam is legal research and drafting tooling. It provides legal information grounded in primary Indian sources. It does not create an advocate–client relationship and does not replace advice from a qualified legal professional. Verify every citation and exercise your own professional judgment. ### Is my research private? Yes. Your queries, matters, and saved research stay private to your account. Your work product is never sold and never used to train public models. ## Get started Create your Niyam account in under a minute — ₹100 to start, 200 credits to try everything. Ask your first legal question and see the cited authority behind every answer. Start your ₹100 trial at https://app.niyam.ai/register — 200 credits to begin, cancel anytime.