The following tables compare notable reference management software. The comparison includes older applications that may no longer be supported, as well as actively-maintained software.
In the "notes" section, there is a difference between:
Software | Developer | First public release | Latest stable release date | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Free software | License | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BibBase | Christian Fritz | 2005 | 2024-06-06 | ? | Free for students / Paid plan for others | No | Proprietary | Centrally hosted website, intended for publication pages |
BibDesk | BibDesk developers | 2002-04 | 2024-02-26 | 1.9.2 | Free | Yes | BSD | BibTeX front-end + repository; Cocoa-based; integration with Spotlight |
BibSonomy | University of Kassel | 2006-01 | 2024-01-08 | 4.1.0 | Free | Yes | AGPL, GPL, LGPL [1] | Centrally hosted website |
Bookends | Sonny Software | 1988 (Mac) / 1983 (Apple II+) | 2023-05-06 | 14.2 [2] | US$59.99 [lower-alpha 1] | No | Proprietary | Desktop & iOS synced via iCloud, integrated web search, PDF download, auto-completion, Word plugin, BibTex support, PDF annotations stored as notes |
Citavi | Lumivero | 2006-02-13 | 2023-08-15 | 6.17.0.0 | US$89-1947 [lower-alpha 2] | No | Proprietary | Data can be saved locally on the computer, or, for team access, in the Citavi Cloud or an intranet Microsoft SQL Server; [3] search databases from interface [4] |
EndNote | Clarivate Analytics | 1988 | 2021-11-30 | 20.2.1 | US$299.95 [lower-alpha 1] | No | Proprietary | The web version EndNote basic (formerly, EndNote Web) is free of charge |
JabRef | JabRef developers | 2003-11-29 | 2023-10-21 | 5.11 | Free | Yes | MIT license | Java BibTeX and BibLaTeX manager |
KBibTeX | KBibTeX developers | 2005-08 | 2020-04-26 | 0.9.2 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | BibTeX front-end, using the KDE Software Compilation |
Mendeley | Elsevier | 2008-08 | 2020 | 1.19.8 | Free / Online storage free up to 2 GB / Additional storage space available | No | proprietary (OS API clients exist) | Account required, Desktop & Web components, Windows, Linux, macOS (not macOS 11 Big Sur) |
Paperpile | Stefan Washietl, Gregorgy Jordan, Andreas Gruber | 2013 | Continually updated online | US$2.99/month for academics, 9.99/month otherwise | No | Proprietary | Web-app, integrates with Google Docs, collaboration & sharing features, currently only on Google Chrome | |
Papers | ReadCube | 2011-10 | 2023-04-04 | v.4.35.2224 | US$ 3/month for students, 5/month academics | No | Proprietary | Web-app, Desktop (MacOS, Windows), Mobile (iOS and Android). Microsoft Word and Google Docs add-in. Browser extension (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari) |
refbase | refbase developers | 2003-06-03 | 2014-02-28 | 0.9.6 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | Web-based for institutional repositories/self-archiving [5] |
RefDB | refdb developers | 2001-04-25 | 2022-02-13 | 1.0.3 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | Network-transparent; XML/SGML bibliographies |
RefWorks | Ex Libris / ProQuest / Clarivate | 2001 | 2024-07-09 | 4.6 | Institutional subscription | No | Proprietary | Web-based, browser-accessed, Word & Google Docs |
Wikindx | Mark Grimshaw, Stéphane Aulery | 2003-02 | 2024-10-11 | 6.11.0 | Free | Yes | ISC license | Web-based, for PHP and MySQL/MariaDB |
Zotero | Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at GMU | 2006 | 2024-08-26 | 7.0.3 [6] | Free / Online storage free up to 300 MB / Additional storage space available | Yes | AGPL | Multi-platform desktop version with connectors for Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Web-based access to reference library also available through Zotero.org or through a personal cloud-based database folder on a user's computer (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). |
In the case of web applications, this describes the server OS. For centrally hosted websites that are proprietary, this is not applicable. Any client OS can connect to a web service unless stated otherwise in a footnote.
Software | Windows | macOS | Linux | ChromeOS | BSD | Unix | iOS App | Android App | Windows App |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
BibBase | — | — | — | — | — | — | ? | ? | ? |
BibDesk | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BibSonomy | — | — | — | — | — | — | ? | ? | ? |
Bookends | No | Yes | No | ? | No | No | Yes | ? | ? |
Citavi | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
EndNote | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
KBibTeX | Experimental | Experimental | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Mendeley | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No (phased out as of March 15, 2021) [7] | No (phased out as of March 15, 2021) [7] | No |
Paperpile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (requires Chromium) | No (requires Chromium) | Yes [8] | Yes [9] | No |
Papers | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Pybliographer | Partial [lower-alpha 3] | Partial [lower-alpha 3] | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
refbase | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
RefDB | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
RefWorks [10] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No | ? | No |
Wikindx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Zotero | Yes | Yes | Yes | Intel only | No | Yes | Yes | Third party [11] | No |
This table lists the machine-readable file formats that can be exported from reference managers. These are typically used to share data with other reference managers or with other people who use a reference manager. To exchange data from one program to another, the first program must be able to export to a format that the second program may import. Import file formats are in a table below this one.
Software | BibTeX | Endnote/Refer/BibIX | Medline | MODS XML | RIS | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | Yes | No | No | No | No | unAPI |
BibBase | Yes | No | No | No | No | None |
BibDesk | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Endnote XML, user customizable |
BibSonomy | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Various [12] |
Bookends | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Various user-customizable |
Citavi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | NVivo and various others |
EndNote | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Various [13] |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | BibTeXML, DocBook, HTML, OpenDocument for OO.o, RTF, SQL database, user-customizable |
KBibTeX | Yes | Yes | No | Depends [lower-alpha 4] | Yes | PDF, PostScript, HTML, XML, RTF |
Mendeley | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Endnote XML |
Paperpile | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | CSV,JSON |
Papers | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | None |
Pybliographer | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Ovid |
refbase | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | COinS, OpenDocument for OO.o, SRW XML via SRU, unAPI, Word XML |
RefDB | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | SRW XML via SRU web service, DocBook, TEI |
RefWorks | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | RIS, BibTeX, Tab delimited or XML metadata |
Wikindx | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | COinS, HTML, PubMed, RTF |
Zotero | Yes | Yes | As of version 4.0 [14] | Yes | Yes | COinS, CSV, Several RDF format standards, TEI, Wikipedia citation templates, Endnote XML, CSL JSON, Refer/BiblX, RefWorks tagged |
This table lists the file formats which may be manually imported into the reference managers without needing to connect to one particular database. Many of these database companies use the same name for their file format as they do for their database (including Copac, CSA, ISI, Medline, Ovid, PubMed, and SciFinder). For the ability to retrieve citations from the particular databases (rather than the file format), please refer to the database connectivity table that is below this table.
As of January 2021 [update] , CSL YAML is not supported by any reference management system. [15]
Software | BibTeX | Copac | CSA | Endnote/Refer/BibIX | ISI | Medline | MODS XML | Ovid | PubMed | RIS | SciFinder | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
BibBase | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
BibDesk | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | MARC, JSTOR, Reference Miner |
BibSonomy | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Firefox bookmarks |
Bookends | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various user-customizable |
Citavi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various |
EndNote | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [16] |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | BibTexML, Biomail, Inspec, JSTOR, MSBib, PDF widh XMP annotations, REPEC (NEP), SilverPlatter, SixPack |
KBibTeX | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Depends [lower-alpha 4] | No | Yes | Yes | No | None |
Mendeley | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Browser bookmarks |
Paperpile | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | PDF, MARC |
Papers | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | |
Pybliographer | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | None |
refbase | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | RefWorks |
RefDB | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 4] | No | Yes [lower-alpha 4] | Yes [lower-alpha 4] | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 4] | MARC, risx |
RefWorks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [17] |
Wikindx | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | BibReX LaTeX |
Zotero | Yes | No [lower-alpha 5] | No [lower-alpha 5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | COinS, MARC, RDF, unAPI, Browser bookmarks, Endnote XML, others [18] |
Software | APA | Chicago/Turabian | Harvard | MLA | Other | Extension method |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BibBase | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
BibDesk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [19] | BibTeX style files (use Pandoc § CiteProc for CSL [20] ) or BibDesk export templates [19] |
BibSonomy | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Bookends | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various[ citation needed ] | ? |
Citavi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [21] | Citavi format (through GUI), includes conditions and programmable components; [21] BibTeX or BibLaTeX when used with LaTeX (use Pandoc § CiteProc for CSL [20] ) |
EndNote | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [13] | EndNote format (through GUI) [13] |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various | BibTeX style files or BibLaTeX (use Pandoc § CiteProc for CSL [20] ) |
KBibTeX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various | BibTeX style files (use Pandoc § CiteProc for CSL [20] ) |
Mendeley | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [22] | CSL [22] |
Paperpile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [22] | CSL [22] |
Papers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [22] | CSL; BibTeX or BibLaTeX when used with LaTeX [23] |
Pybliographer | Yes | No | No | No | None | Pybliographer XML |
refbase | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various polar & marine journals | PHP |
RefDB | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 21 biomedical & law journals [24] | XML (citestylex.dtd), interactive script |
RefWorks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various | RefWorks format (through GUI); [25] CSL [22] |
Wikindx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ABNT, BMJ, IEEE | Wikindx format (through GUI) |
Zotero | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Various [22] | CSL; [22] BibTeX or BibLaTeX when used with LaTeX [26] |
Endnote is incompatible with LaTeX. Among other things, it does not provide for robust citation keys.
Software | HTML | LaTeX [lower-alpha 6] | RTF | Plain text | RSS | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | unAPI |
BibBase | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
BibDesk | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Atom, DOC, PDF, XML, |
BibSonomy | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | OpenOffice-CSV |
Bookends | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Clipboard |
Citavi | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 7] | Yes | Yes | No | Clipboard, DOC, ODT, PDF, HTML |
EndNote | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Clipboard, XML |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Clipboard |
KBibTeX | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | PDF, PS |
Mendeley | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 8] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Clipboard, embeddable HTML widget, RSS |
Paperpile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Clipboard |
Papers | Yes | No | No | No | No | |
Pybliographer | Yes | ? | No | Yes | No | No |
refbase | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Markdown, PDF, unAPI |
RefDB | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | No | DocBook, TEI |
RefWorks | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | DOC, ODT |
Wikindx | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Multiple via BibUtils plug-in |
Zotero | Yes | Possible via plugin [28] | Yes | Possible via plugins [29] | Yes | Clipboard |
Some reference management software include support for automatic embedding and (re)formatting of references in Word processor programs. This table lists this type of support for Microsoft Word, Pages, Apache OpenOffice / LibreOffice Writer, the LaTeX editors Kile and LyX, and Google Docs. Other programs are able to scan RTF or other textual formats for inserted placeholders which are subsequently formatted. Most reference management programs support copy/paste or drag-and-drop of references into any editor, but this is not meant here.
Software | Word for Windows | Word for Mac | Word Online | Pages | Apache OpenOffice / LibreOffice | Kile/LyX | Google Docs | RTF scan [lower-alpha 9] | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
BibBase | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
BibDesk | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | User-created scripts |
BibSonomy | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | None |
Bookends | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Mellel, Nisus |
Citavi | Yes | Yes | No | No | Only versions prior to 6.0 | Yes [30] | No | Only versions prior to 6.0 | LaTeX editors Texmaker, TeXnicCenter, TeXstudio, TeXworks, WinEdt, WinShell |
EndNote | Yes | Yes | Yes [31] | Yes | No [32] | No | Yes [33] | Yes | No |
JabRef | Yes [34] | ? | ? | ? | Yes [35] | Yes | No | ? | Emacs, Texmaker, TeXstudio, Vim, WinEdt |
KBibTeX | No | ? | ? | ? | No | Yes | No | ? | None |
Mendeley | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 10] | Yes [36] | No | Yes | No | No | ? | NeoOffice |
Paperpile | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Papers | Yes | Yes | Yes [37] | Yes [38] | Yes | No | Yes | No | Manuscripts app, Scrivener, Ulysses |
Pybliographer | No | ? | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | No | ? | None |
refbase | No | ? | ? | ? | Yes [39] | No | No | Yes | PIRA, MediaWiki, SPIP |
RefDB | No | ? | ? | ? | No | No | No | No | None |
RefWorks | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | None |
Wikindx | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Integrated WYSIWYG word processor (HTML and RTF output) |
Zotero | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | (with LyZ) [40] | Yes | Yes | Various [41] |
This table lists the academic databases and search engines which reference managers can import from. In some cases, a search and retrieval can be conducted directly in the reference manager. In others, a bookmarklet or Firefox extension will allow a site to be scraped.
Software | ArXiv | CiteSeer | IEEE Xplore | PubMed | Unpaywall [lower-alpha 11] | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | No | No | No | No | No | No |
BibBase | No | No | No | No | No | DBLP, Zotero, BibSonomy, Mendeley |
BibDesk | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | ACM portal, Jstor, DBLP, Google Scholar, Web of Science, any Z39.50 or Entrez, and others |
BibSonomy | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Various [42] |
Bookends | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Web of Science, Amazon, Google Scholar, Z39.50 |
Citavi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | WorldCat/OCLC, Ovid, EBSCO, ProQuest, Web of Science, Z39.50 (4500+ online resources), SRU. Further catalogs are added upon request. Browser plugins (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer) support DOI lookup, ISBN lookup, PubMed ID lookup, PMCID lookup, arXiv ID lookup, COinS and import from Wikipedia. |
EndNote | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Various, [43] any Z39.50 |
JabRef | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [44] | ACM Portal, CrossRef, DBLP, DOAJ, DOI, GVK, Google Scholar, INSPIRE-HEP, Medline, MathSciNet, SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Springer, and zbMATH |
KBibTeX | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | BibSonomy, CiteBase, CSB, DBLP, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, INSPIRE-HEP, Z MATH, Z39.50 |
Mendeley | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Various [45] |
Paperpile | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Google Scholar, INSPIRE-HEP, ACM portal, Jstor, Web of Science |
Papers | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Microsoft Academic, Google Scholar |
Pybliographer | No | No | No | Yes | No | None |
refbase | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | DOI lookup |
RefDB | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Any Z39.50 |
RefWorks | No | No | No | Yes | No | Various |
Wikindx | No | No | No | Yes | No | Metadata for Google Scholar Indexing |
Zotero | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [46] | Various [47] |
Some reference managers provide network functionality (N/A, not available, means the product has no networking, while "No" indicates it does but lacks an implemented feature). The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. [48]
Software | Passworded | LDAP | Networking | |
---|---|---|---|---|
User-specific permissions [lower-alpha 12] | Simultaneous write access | |||
Bebop | No | ? | — | — |
BibBase | — | ? | — | — |
BibDesk | Yes | ? | No | No |
BibSonomy | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
Bookends | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Citavi | Yes [lower-alpha 13] | ? | Yes | Yes |
EndNote | Yes | ? | No [lower-alpha 14] | No [lower-alpha 14] |
JabRef | No | ? | No | Partial |
KBibTeX | No | ? | — | — |
Mendeley | Yes [lower-alpha 15] | ? | Yes | Yes |
Paperpile | Yes [lower-alpha 16] | ? | Yes | Yes |
Papers | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes [49] |
Pybliographer | ? | ? | ? | ? |
refbase | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
RefDB | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes |
RefWorks | Yes | ? | ? | Yes |
Wikindx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Zotero | Yes [lower-alpha 17] | ? | Yes | Yes |
Software | Developer | First public release | Latest stable release date | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Free software | License | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bebop | ALaRI Institute | 2007-11-08 | 2009-11-10 | 1.1 | Free | Yes | BSD | Web-based BibTeX front-end (Apache, PHP, MySQL) |
Biblioscape | CG Information | 1997 | 2015-06-22 | 10.0.3.6 | US$79-299 [lower-alpha 1] | No | Proprietary | ODBC; web access in Pro ed; optional client/server; discontinued? |
Bibus | Bibus developers | 2004-06-03 | Discontinued | 1.5.1 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | |
CiteULike | Oversity Limited | 2004-11 | Shut down on 2019-03-30 [50] | Free | No | Proprietary [lower-alpha 18] | Centrally hosted website | |
colwiz | colwiz Ltd | 2011 | 2016-05-09 | Free / Online storage free up to 3 GB / Additional storage space available | No | Proprietary | Now combined with wizdom.ai | |
Pybliographer | pybliographer developers | 1998-10-30 (0.2) | 2018-04-03 | 1.4.0 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | Python/GTK2 |
Qiqqa | Qiqqa | 2010-04 | 2020-10-04 | v80 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | From end 2020, Open Source |
Reference Manager | Thomson Reuters | 1984 | 2010 | 12.0.3 | Not for sale anymore, sales ceased December 31, 2015 | No | Proprietary | Network version; built-in web publishing tool; discontinued |
Referencer | Referencer developers | 2008-03-15 | Discontinued | 1.2.2 | Free | Yes | GNU GPL | BibTeX front-end |
RefME | RefME | 2014 | Shut down in 2017 | Free | No | Proprietary | Web, iOS and Android; Chrome and Safari Extensions available; discontinued | |
SciRef | Scientific Programs | 2012 | 2020-07-30 | 1.6.2 | US$38.90 / Free trial version | No | Proprietary | |
Sente | Third Street Software, Inc. | 2004 | Shut down in 2017 | 6.7.9 | US$60–80 [lower-alpha 1] / Free for libraries up to 100 refs | No | Proprietary | Desktop and iPad, centralized backup/synching; discontinued |
WizFolio | WizPatent | 2008-06 | Shut down in 2017 | Avatara | US$25 / Free Basic version | No | Proprietary | Centrally hosted website; discontinued |
Papyrus | Research Software Design | Prior to 1991 | 1997 | 7.0.17 for DOS/Windows and 8.0.12 for Mac OS | Free | Yes | Unknown | Free as of January 2004 |
LaTeX is a software system for typesetting documents. LaTeX markup describes the content and layout of the document, as opposed to the formatted text found in WYSIWYG word processors like Google Docs, LibreOffice Writer and Microsoft Word. The writer uses markup tagging conventions to define the general structure of a document, to stylise text throughout a document, and to add citations and cross-references. A TeX distribution such as TeX Live or MiKTeX is used to produce an output file suitable for printing or digital distribution.
BibTeX is both a bibliographic flat-file database file format and a software program for processing these files to produce lists of references (citations). The BibTeX file format is a widely used standard with broad support by reference management software.
CiteULike was a web service which allowed users to save and share citations to academic papers. Based on the principle of social bookmarking, the site worked to promote and to develop the sharing of scientific references amongst researchers. In the same way that it is possible to catalog web pages or photographs, scientists could share citation information using CiteULike. Richard Cameron developed CiteULike in November 2004 and in 2006 Oversity Ltd. was established to develop and support CiteULike. In February 2019, CiteULike announced that it would be ceasing operations as of March 30, 2019.
JabRef is an open-source, cross-platform citation and reference management software. It is used to collect, organize and search bibliographic information.
EndNote is a commercial reference management software package, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays, reports and articles. EndNote was written by Richard Niles, and ownership changed hands several times since it was launched in 1989 by Niles & Associates: in 2000 it was acquired by Institute for Scientific Information’s ResearchSoft Division, part of Thomson Corporation, and in 2016 by Clarivate. EndNote's main competitors are Mendeley and Zotero. Unlike Mendeley and Zotero, EndNote is neither free-to-use nor offers a freemium model.
refbase is a web-based institutional repository and reference management software written in PHP and using MySQL as a back-end database. It is available under the terms of the GPL license and its packages are featured in the official repositories of Gentoo Linux and Mandriva Linux.
RIS is a standardized tag format developed by Research Information Systems, Incorporated to enable citation programs to exchange data. It is supported by a number of reference managers. Many digital libraries, like Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, the ACM Portal, Scopemed, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Rayyan, The Lens, Accordance Bible Software, and online library catalogs can export citations in this format. Citation management applications can export and import citations in this format.
Zotero is free and open-source reference management software to manage bibliographic data and related research materials, such as PDF and ePUB files. Features include web browser integration, online syncing, generation of in-text citations, footnotes, and bibliographies, integrated PDF, ePUB and HTML readers with annotation capabilities, and a note editor, as well as integration with the word processors Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, and Google Docs. It was originally created at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and, as of 2021, is developed by the non-profit Corporation for Digital Scholarship.
The Citation Style Language (CSL) is an open XML file format that describes schema for the formatting of citations and bibliographies. Reference management programs using CSL include Zotero, Mendeley and Papers. The Pandoc lightweight document conversion system also supports citations in CSL, YAML, and JSON formats and can render these using any of the CSL styles listed in the Zotero Style Repository.
BibDesk is an open-source reference management software package for macOS, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles. It can also be used to organize and maintain a library of documents in PDF format and other formats. It is primarily a BibTeX front-end for use with LaTeX, but also offers external bibliographic database connectivity for importing, a variety of means for exporting, and capability for linking to local documents and automatically filing local documents. It takes advantage of many macOS features such as AppleScript and Spotlight.
CiteProc is the generic name for programs that produce formatted bibliographies and citations based on the metadata of the cited objects and the formatting instructions provided by Citation Style Language (CSL) styles. The first CiteProc implementation used XSLT 2.0, but implementations have been written for other programming languages, including JavaScript, Java, Haskell, PHP, Python, Ruby and Emacs Lisp.
Mendeley is a reference manager software founded in 2007 by PhD students Paul Foeckler, Victor Henning, Jan Reichelt and acquired by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier in 2013. It is used to manage and share research papers and to generate bibliographies for scholarly articles.
WIKINDX is a free bibliographic and quotations/notes management and article authoring system designed either for single use and multi-user collaborative use across the internet. WIKINDX falls within the category of reference management software, but also provides functionality to write notes and entire papers.
Bebop is a web-based BibTeX front-end that creates a web interface to a list of publications stored in a BibTeX file and allows browsing by author, year, document type, topic and keywords using PHP, JavaScript and XML technologies. It can be mainly used by individuals and institutes for self-archiving and creating institutional repositories.
Citavi is a reference management and knowledge organization program for Microsoft Windows published by Swiss Academic Software in Wädenswil, Switzerland. There is also an interface called Citavi Web which can be used on a Mac. Citavi is widely used in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with site licenses at most universities, many of which offer training sessions and settings files for Citavi.
Zim is a graphical text editor designed to maintain a collection of locally stored wiki-pages, a personal wiki. It works as a personal knowledge base and note-taking software application that operates on text files using markdown. Each wiki-page can contain things like text with simple formatting, links to other pages, attachments, and images. Additional plugins, such as an equation editor and spell-checker, are also available. The wiki-pages are stored in a folder structure in plain text files with wiki formatting. Zim can be used with the Getting Things Done method.
BibBase is a free web-service for creating and maintaining publication pages. BibBase takes its input from a BibTex file or from DBLP, Zotero, BibSonomy, or Mendeley. It produces both HTML renderings, which can be embedded into an existing web page, as well as RSS feeds that allows others to subscribe to updates about new publications from the user.
Pandoc is a free-software document converter, widely used as a writing tool and as a basis for publishing workflows. It was created by John MacFarlane, a philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Paperpile is a web-based commercial reference management software, with special emphasis on integration with Google Docs and Google Scholar. Parts of Paperpile are implemented as a Google Chrome browser extension. It was founded in 2012, and is produced by Paperpile LLC.
Zettlr is a free and open-source note-taking application that works with Markdown files. Files may be exported and imported from a variety of different formats using an integration with Pandoc, whilst integration with reference managers allows for insertion of citations into documents. Internal links may be created between notes, which can be visualised as a graph, enabling its use as a personal information management system or digital Zettelkasten. The name Zettlr is derived from the German word Zettel meaning 'note'.
Addedbibtex
,biblatex
as input formats. This allows pandoc to convert between BibLaTeX and BibTeX and other bibliography formats, and to generate formatted versions of BibTeX/BibLaTeX bibliographies (e.g.,pandoc -f biblatex --citeproc pl.bib -o pl.pdf
).
Citavi offers over 10,000 citation styles.Other styles can be requested and are centrally corrected; and any BibTeX style can be used with LaTeX.