LibGuides: Citation: Compare Citation Management Software

Choosing Software

	EndNote Desktop	EndNote Web	Mendeley	Zotero
Cost	Available to all faculty, staff, graduate, and medical students via CIS. Endnote from CIS	Free; upgraded version available free to Brown users via Web of Science. SeeEndNote Online.	Free (additional cost for more storage and group functionality available from Mendeley)	Free and open source.
System requirements	Windows 7 and above, MacOS 10.10 and above, more details from EndNote	Windows 2007 or later, Mac OS X 10.6 or later, more details from EndNote	Windows 7 or later, Mac OS 10.10 and above, and Linux, more details from Mendeley	Windows XP SP2 or later, MacOS 10.9 or later, and Linux, more details from Zotero
Where data is stored	Computer	Web	Computer with web based syncing	Computer with optional web based syncing
Work offline	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Work from multiple computers	Must sync with EndNote web	Yes	Yes	Yes
Word Processors	MS Word 2007 and above, Word for Mac 2011 and above, Google Docs	MS Word 2007 or later, Microsoft Word 2008 SP1/2011 plug-in for Macs, Google Docs	MS Word, Libre Office, BibTex export for use with LaTex	MS Word 2003-2016, Word for Mac 2004-2016, Google Docs
Mobile app	iPad app	No	iPad/iPhone/Adroid apps	iOS and Android apps
Share library	Share entire library (references, PDFs, annotations) with up to 100 EndNote users	Share with other EndNote Web users. All users can edit shared groups, but cannot share file attachments	Yes	Yes
Storage size	Unlimited	2 GB free	2 GB free, $ for more storage	Unlimited
Number of reference types	50	51	20	38
Import citation information from web	No	Yes, with bookmarklet	Yes, with a bookmark for a limited number of sites (mostly publishers or databases)	Yes
Import citation from library catalog	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Import citation from library databases	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Search database/catalog from within program	Yes	Yes	Catalog only	No
Retrieve citation information from pdf	Yes, from DOI or PubMed ID fields	No	Yes - extracted information from PDF, DOI, PubMed and Mendeley database	Yes - uses DOI, extracted information from PDF or Google Scholar
Global find/replace editing	Yes	Yes	No	No
Field searching	Yes, any field	No - searches entire record	Yes, author, title, publication name, year & notes fields	Yes, any field
Duplicate detection	Yes, able to modify fields to use for deduplication	Yes from same database, but will not usually recognize duplicates from different databases	Yes	Yes
Add notes to references	Yes, use notes field	Yes, use notes field	Yes, use notes tab in desktop version	Yes, attached to references or as standalone notes
Spell check	Yes	No	No	No
Attach pdfs	Yes with option to attach automatically	No	Yes, and can highlight and annotate PDFs	Yes, with option to attach automatically
Search for and attach PDFs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Annotate pdfs	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Search attached pdfs	Yes	No	Yes	No
Create bibliography with different styles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, limited default number, others download from Zotero
Edit output style	Yes	No	No	Yes, but very difficult
Online Tutorials & Videos	EndNote Training Channel	EndNote Training Channel	Mendeley Videos & Tutorials	Zotero Tutorials