Living systematic review

Retrieval-augmented generation

Grounding LLM generation in retrieved documents — retrieval, reranking, graph/recursive indexing, self-correction, and robustness of the retrieve-then-generate pipeline.

664 papers1,433 critique receipts6,345 benchmark resultsupdated Jun 20, 2026

Most-superseded baselines

Ranked by how many distinct papers critique or beat each method — the standard baselines newer work routinely measures against.

1
RAG
Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks
69 critique · 79 beaten on benchmarks
2
GraphRAGin RAG
A Survey of Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Customized Large Language Models
38 critique · 31 beaten on benchmarks
3
Self-RAG
Self-RAG: Learning to Retrieve, Generate, and Critique through Self-Reflection
26 critique · 40 beaten on benchmarks
4
LightRAGin RAG
15 critique · 24 beaten on benchmarks
5
RAPTORin RAG
RAPTOR: Recursive Abstractive Processing for Tree-Organized Retrieval
7 critique · 21 beaten on benchmarks
6
FLAREin Self-RAG
Active Retrieval Augmented Generation
11 critique · 14 beaten on benchmarks
7
PoisonedRAG
PoisonedRAG: Knowledge Corruption Attacks to Retrieval-Augmented Generation of Large Language Models
12 critique · 13 beaten on benchmarks
8
HippoRAG 2in RAG
From RAG to Memory: Non-Parametric Continual Learning for Large Language Models
1 critique · 23 beaten on benchmarks
9
IRCoTin RAG
4 critique · 19 beaten on benchmarks
10
BM25
6 critique · 16 beaten on benchmarks
11
CRAGin Self-RAG
Corrective Retrieval Augmented Generation
11 critique · 11 beaten on benchmarks
12
ReActin RAG
ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models
6 critique · 15 beaten on benchmarks

The competition

Methods that fight on the same benchmarks cluster into distinct sub-problems.

RAG369 methods

RAG · GraphRAG · LightRAG · RAPTOR · HippoRAG 2 · IRCoT

Self-RAG245 methods

Self-RAG · FLARE · CRAG · Adaptive-RAG · Iter-RetGen · DRAGIN

BM25123 methods

BM25 · DPR · ColBERT · RankRAG · Contriever · KG²RAG

RECOMP97 methods

RECOMP · LongLLMLingua · LLMLingua · CompAct · ICAE · xRAG

MMGraphRAG112 methods

MMGraphRAG · Video-RAG · VisRAG · RAG-Anything · KG-RAG · MiniCPM (OCR)

RobustRAG62 methods

RobustRAG · TrustRAG · Astute RAG · ReliabilityRAG · PPL · PromptGuard

RetRobust60 methods

RetRobust · RAFT · RAAT · Ret-Robust · LLM-Embedder · PA-RAG

PoisonedRAG48 methods

PoisonedRAG · Joint-GCG · AgentPoison · BadChain · Context-Agnostic Attack · GARAG

AutoRAG30 methods

AutoRAG · ReARTeR · FastRAG · LlamaIndex · DeepRAG · RAG-Star

RAG-DDR17 methods

RAG-DDR · Emotion-LLaMA · PandaGPT · Video-LLaMA · Video-LLaMA 2 · VideoChat

The frontier

Recent methods not yet superseded in the knowledge base.