Polarizable continuum solvation models (PCSM) are powerful, simple and effective tools that are used to describe solvation effects on molecules and larger biological systems. Most commonly, such models are used by two large communities: quantum chemists employ them as a cost-effective model to include environmental effects into the prediction of molecular geometries and spectroscopic observables . Biophysicists use them to study the electrostatics of large solvated biomolecules, and hence their binding properties . Both communities have developed PCSM independently and coded in different software and with different numerical strategies; the models all share a common ingredient, i.e., they treat the solvent as a continuum, infinite, structureless dielectric that is polarized by the solvent and, possibly, back-polarizes it. The electrostatic response of the dielectric is obtained by solving either the generalized Poisson equation or, for (weakly) ionic solutions, the (linearized)