Best Reference Management Software
Reference management software aids students, research-oriented professionals, and anyone else in sourcing others’ material by citing accurately and efficiently. These tools can be for one-time use, where users submit information and receive a full citation, or can act as a secure source repository for long-term projects. Reference management software can serve more than academic purposes; business presentations or reports can all benefit from being adequately cited. The tool can connect large teams through cloud servers, providing companies access to trusted resources and articles.
Reference management tools can often integrate with file storage and sharing, document creation tools, or web-based browsers. Connecting with a web browser helps users save time and resources as they’re found much more efficiently instead of struggling to locate them later. Common features of reference management software include advanced searching, reference libraries, the ability to import references, and version history.
To qualify for inclusion in the Reference Management category, a product must:
Best Reference Management Software At A Glance
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- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
EasyBib.com provides citation, note-taking and research tools. EasyBib offers free and premium services for individuals and institutions.
- Teacher
- Higher Education
- Education Management
- 49% Small-Business
- 28% Mid-Market
- Reviewers like how EasyBib.com can make a citation out of a website link, but find the advertisements on the site distracting.
- Reviewers appreciate how the tool helps students properly cite their sources in a timely manner.
- Reviewers note that the citations EasyBib makes are always quality and formatted correctly, but that the tool requires an upgrade to use the APA format.
53,981 Twitter followers
- Overview
- Pros and Cons
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Afforai is the AI-powered reference manager for modern researchers. Afforai allows users to upload and organize their research papers with folders and tags, as well as reliably search, summarize, and
- CEO
- Consulting
- Marketing and Advertising
- 90% Small-Business
- 8% Mid-Market
- Overview
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- What G2 Users Think
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ReadCube is an all-in-one research management software designed to empower researchers, academics, and professionals in organizing, accessing, and analyzing scientific literature more efficiently. Wit
- Professor
- Assistant Professor
- Research
- Higher Education
- 52% Small-Business
- 34% Enterprise
- Reviewers like that ReadCube Papers allows them to easily search through article references, but dislike that PDF versions of articles aren’t always enhanced.
- Reviewers like the in-line citation feature, but importing and maintaining citation format can be a challenge.
- Reviewers appreciate that ReadCube offers relevant and updated research resources, but sometimes the constant updates can make it slow to respond.
4,465 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Find, use and share research with EndNote. It's for more than bibliographies. Sync your EndNote library across your desktop, iPad and online. Work on your research from anywhere.
- Graduate Research Assistant
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Higher Education
- Research
- 63% Enterprise
- 19% Mid-Market
- Reviewers like that EndNote offers guidance and freedom for users to format citations however they want, but sometimes format can be altered when exporting data.
- Reviewers appreciate that the tool keeps records of articles referenced, but sometimes they can be hard to search for and locate.
- Reviewers enjoy that users can add collaborators to libraries, encouraging teamwork. However, it’s unclear who has access to the backed up versions.
19,735 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
A curated abstract and citation database with content from 5,000+ publishers to help you track and enhance your researcher and institutional data and discover global, multidisciplinary research.
- 36% Enterprise
- 36% Mid-Market
117,891 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Mendeley is a desktop and web program for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online.
- Graduate Research Assistant
- Graduate Teaching Assistant
- Higher Education
- Research
- 48% Enterprise
- 30% Small-Business
- Reviewers like that Mendeley can easily manage their references for research, but also say that sometimes the tool has a hard time with auto-detection.
- Reviewers enjoy that this tool automatically imports and categorizes your documents, but sometimes creating new categories can be a challenge.
- Reviewers love that Mendeley has options for in-text citations, but would like to be able to use the same functionality offline.
5,517 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Article Galaxy’s document retrieval engine puts 80M+ full-text journal articles at your fingertips, saving you time and money with fast and easy access to peer-reviewed scientific literature.
- Biotechnology
- Pharmaceuticals
- 46% Mid-Market
- 35% Small-Business
- Reviewers like the amount of information and literature the tool gives them access to, but wish they could have the same permissions offline.
- Reviewers say the customer service they receive from Article Galaxy Enterprise is helpful and efficient.
2,271 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.
- Graduate Research Assistant
- Higher Education
- Research
- 39% Small-Business
- 34% Enterprise
- Reviewers like how Zotero keeps them from creating and organizing citations manually, but they can be hard to export one by one.
- Reviewers appreciate how the tool is accessible to all, as it is free and open source. Users can also install plugins that make it more personalized.
- Reviewers enjoy that you can add a bibliography entry while reading an article, but don’t love the format restrictions when doing so.
41,943 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
The Only All-in-One Writing and Referencing Solution Streamline your research writing process with the only tool designed to organize, track, and format your writing and references. With features des
- 47% Small-Business
- 29% Mid-Market
376 Twitter followers
- Overview
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- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Clean, simple reference management for the web. Sync your library to all your devices and read and annotate like on paper on your iPad, iPhone, or Android device. Cite your papers in Google Docs and M
- Education Management
- Higher Education
- 54% Small-Business
- 23% Enterprise
- Reviewers like that Paperpile integrates with Google Drive, but the files can be large and take up a lot of space.
- Reviewers enjoy that the tool allows them to collaborate on research projects with others, but access can be limited to certain web browsers.
- Reviewers appreciate the organization of research papers that the tool provides, but sometimes the downloading process can be slow.
17,600 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
CTFM helps researchers find and correctly cite sources.
- Writing and Editing
- 45% Mid-Market
- 36% Small-Business
- Reviewers like how Cite This For Me offers a Google Chrome extension, but say that the website itself has too many distracting advertisements.
- Reviewers appreciate the amount of citation styles the tool offers, but sometimes the automatic references require editing due to inaccurate information.
53,981 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
RefWorks is an online research management, writing and collaboration tool that is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate cita
- Higher Education
- Research
- 55% Enterprise
- 24% Mid-Market
- Reviewers like how easily they can connect to their RefWorks database of resources, but sometimes it can be slow to update.
- Reviewers like how the software keeps all of your references in one location, but have experienced errors in citation accuracy.
- Reviewers appreciate the ability to save articles to their RefWorks account from other pages, but found that sharing articles was a challenge.
27,507 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
JabRef is an open-source, cross-platform citation and reference management tool. It uses BibTeX and BibLaTeX as its native file formats and provides therefor a premier bibliography solution for typese
- Higher Education
- 75% Enterprise
- 17% Mid-Market
869 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- Seller Details
Reference Manager is the powerful bibliographic solution for workgroups, networks and collaborative projects. Search online databases, organize references easily, and watch your bibliography appear as
- Higher Education
- 58% Enterprise
- 25% Small-Business
152,808 Twitter followers
- Overview
- User Satisfaction
- What G2 Users Think
- Seller Details
Sciwheel is an award-winning tool providing library patrons with an easy way to discover, read, annotate, write. Part of Techology from SAGE.
- Research
- Higher Education
- 40% Enterprise
- 25% Small-Business
- Reviewers like that Sciwheel enables them to incorporate citations into their papers, but sometimes they struggle with the automatic transfer of information.
- Reviewers enjoy the organization that this reference management tool provides, but experienced problems with speed and upkeep of plug-ins.
- Reviewers love the assistance the tool offers when conducting research, but sometimes find they need to correct references that the software provides.
Learn More About Reference Management Software
What is reference management?
Reference management is a standard step in composing research projects. This software ensures the proper sources receive credit. Also known as citation management, it allows users to collect, store, and organize references or in-text citations. This software provides a complete set of tools that allows researchers to focus on delivering a cohesive and fully referenced research paper.
Many reference management tools help users create a personal resource library to organize all the resources they find and use for different projects. Reference management software helps create citations, bibliography pages, and reference lists with features that assist with citation generation in multiple styles. These citations and annotations can come from online articles, books, journals, and other sources. It’s as simple as inputting article or journal information and then copying and pasting the results into the research paper itself. The tools are commonly used for academic advising and are accessible to all ages.
The software can create citations in the desired style, automating the creation of bibliographies, endnotes, footnotes, or reference sections in research papers.
Is a reference manager the same as a citation manager?
The terms reference manager and citation manager are often used interchangeably. Both tools can automate the creation of footnotes, bibliographies, or reference sections in papers. They can create citations in different styles like MLA, APA, Chicago style, etc.
A reference (names and dates, page numbers, etc.) can be found in the body of a research paper. A citation also provides relevant information such as author name, date, title, edition, and, additionally, a digital object identifier (DOI).
The terms functionally perform the same action—acknowledging the work of other researchers and data points.
Who uses reference management software?
- Teachers: Many educators introduce reference management software into lessons so students have the knowledge and resources to execute their properly cited projects.
- Students: Students of all ages, from grade school to grad school, use reference management software to keep track of sources. Students sometimes use this software for multiple projects at a time.
- Academics and researchers: Individuals doing research in specific fields, such as medicine or academia, will often need good software to collect and monitor sources used in professional research projects.
- Librarians: Librarians use reference management software to organize and manage bibliographic information for their institutions' collections. This helps in maintaining accurate records of available resources.
- Corporate professionals: Corporate professionals, especially those involved in research and development, strategic planning, and market analysis, may use tools to organize and cite industry reports, market analyses, and relevant business literature.
- Healthcare professionals: Healthcare professionals, including doctors and researchers, use these tools to organize, annotate, and cite medical literature, research papers, and clinical studies in their work.
Why use reference management software?
Reference management software is the most straightforward and efficient way to track sources when working on a research project. It lets users create their own open-source libraries. As a result, users can save valuable time in the research process.
- Generating citations: Often, generating citations is as easy as inputting a link or ISBN and copying and pasting the results into a works cited page. It lets users choose the citation style and includes specific pages for quoting sources. As a result, this software can seamlessly generate citations for users.
- Collecting sources: Depending on how long a research project is, the user can utilize a couple of dozen sources. Reference management tools have features that let users organize sources in one place. This helps researchers keep track of when sources were found, an important feature as some projects might span over months or years.
- Increased accuracy and consistency: The software minimizes the risk of citation errors by automating the citation process and ensuring that references are formatted correctly according to the chosen citation style.
- Integration with word processors: Seamless integration with word processing software (such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or LaTeX) allows users to insert citations and generate bibliographies directly within their documents. This ensures proper formatting and reduces the chances of citation errors. It can be used on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android operating systems.
Benefits of reference management software
Some of the key benefits of reference management software are:
- Efficient organization: Reference management provides a centralized location to store and organize citations, references, and other data. This helps users keep research materials in an accessible location.
- Document integration: Several reference management software are compatible with word processing tools such as Microsoft Word, thus facilitating easy integration within documents.
- Cross-platform accessibility: With availability of cloud storage options, reference data is available across multiple devices and locations. This also helps improve collaboration across teams.
- Time saving: Using tools helps quickly search, retrieve, and insert references into their work, thus helping with time management when compared to manual methods.
- Version history: Some reference management tools help track changes over time, thus providing a version history feature, enhancing accountability in collaborative research projects.
- Reduced errors: Automation tools help reduce the likelihood of citation errors, ensuring accuracy and adherence.
- Annotation and notes: Some tools offer features for note-taking and annotations, allowing users to write additional insights and information.
Reference management software features
Reference management software comes with various features; most features are standard across the board, though a couple of features are only found in certain tools.
- Citation generation: These tools can generate citations from multiple sources, including websites, books, academic journals, and more. This includes the generation of citations in multiple different styles, including MLA, APA, Chicago style, and more.
- Bibliography generation: Reference management tools can create a bibliography with a collection of sources, saving researchers time.
- Personal source library: Features in reference management software enable users to compile their collection of sources and references relevant to their specific needs. This allows easy access to sources viewed in the past. This quick reference tool saves time for researchers as many may use the same sources for multiple projects.
- Resource database: Many reference management tools connect to online databases full of resource materials, including journals, blogs, books, online publications, and more. Users can even search for reliable sources in the reference management tool.
- Synchronization: Since many reference management tools are websites or web applications such as Chrome and Firefox, their dynamic features and plugins allow users to access references from any device that can access web pages. This lets users access their research sources from their iPads, laptops, or other devices. A browser extension can be added to search engines to create a seamless workflow.
- Essay checker: This feature in some reference management software lets users submit their essays to a grammar and spell check. Some programs even scan for plagiarism by comparing submitted material to databases of source materials.
Reference management software trends
- User-friendly interface: The ability to make the user experience easy and straightforward is a trend currently affecting the education technology world. In academia, there is a wide range of users—some have years of experience with various technologies, some have little to no experience.
- The common goal of education software is to allow users of all experience levels to successfully use these tools for their use case—creating catalogs, archiving, end notes, improving functionality, and more.
- Integration with collaborative platforms: Reference management software is increasingly being integrated with document collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Word. This trend enhances real-time collaboration among researchers, students, and professionals by allowing them to seamlessly share and discuss references within their collaboration environment.
- Cloud-based solutions: Cloud storage continues to gain popularity in the reference management space due to easy access, seamless collaboration, and automatic synchronization across devices. This trend aligns with the broader shift toward cloud computing in the software industry.
Written and researched by JaKayla Lathon
Reviewed and edited by Jigmee Bhutia
