# Mendeley Reviews **Vendor:** Mendeley **Category:** [Reference Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/reference-management) **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 249 ## About Mendeley Mendeley Reference Manager is a comprehensive, free tool designed to streamline the process of managing and sharing research references. It enables users to effortlessly import, organize, and annotate PDFs, facilitating efficient collaboration and citation generation. By integrating with Microsoft Word through the Mendeley Cite add-in, it allows for seamless insertion of citations and bibliographies directly into documents. The platform's cloud-based architecture ensures that your library is accessible and synchronized across multiple devices, enhancing productivity and collaboration among researchers. Key Features and Functionality: - Effortless Importing: Quickly add PDFs or entire folders to your library with a single click or by dragging and dropping. - Web Integration: Utilize the Mendeley Web Importer to collect and organize references while browsing online, ensuring no source is overlooked. - Automatic Organization: Set up watched folders to automatically import and organize new PDFs added to designated desktop folders. - Collaborative Research: Create shared libraries with colleagues or co-authors, allowing for real-time collaboration, annotation, and alignment on research materials. - Seamless Citation: Insert citations and generate bibliographies directly within Microsoft Word using the Mendeley Cite add-in, streamlining the writing process. Primary Value and User Solutions: Mendeley Reference Manager addresses the common challenges researchers face in organizing and citing references. By providing a unified platform for reference management, annotation, and collaboration, it simplifies the research workflow, reduces the risk of losing important sources, and enhances the efficiency of writing scholarly documents. Its cloud-based system ensures that your research materials are always backed up and accessible, promoting seamless collaboration and productivity. ## Mendeley Reviews ### 1. Effortless Organization and Customization for References **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 02, 2026 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** I love that Mendeley is free and it's very easy to use. I can organize my citations in folders, and it's great that I can open each PDF to highlight and add notes. The customization options are a big plus too. I appreciate that it makes managing citation styles super simple, letting me change styles like AMA, APA, or Harvard with just a single click. The way it automatically updates citations in real time is very helpful. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** I really would love to add the DOI numbers directly from the add-ons in Microsoft Word, not from the Mendeley app itself. I'd like to do this from the add-ons, like to add the reference that I would be searching directly from Microsoft Word. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mendeley automates citation style changes, saving me time and effort by avoiding manual editing. It updates references in real-time with seamless integration to Word, manages citation styles with one click, and handles DOI links to ensure accurate information. ### 2. Seamless, Organized Reference Management with Mendeley **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Muzammil Sharief D. | student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 17, 2026 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** I have used Mendeley extensively, and it has been very helpful for managing a large volume of journal articles, which is a daily necessity in research. It makes the overall process feel seamless, organized, and well structured. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** Mendeley becomes very slow to respond while handling large libraries, and can sometimes be frustrating. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mendeley makes reference management effortless and well organized. I also appreciate its integration with MS Word for citations and bibliography generation, which helps keep my writing workflow smooth and consistent. ### 3. Best (in development) reference manager **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Óscar O. | Adjunct Professor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 29, 2025 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** I use it almost every day for reading and managing references. It is by far the most user-friendly reference manager I’ve encountered—intuitive to set up and immediately productive. The official website offers strong support, and the large, active community is always willing to help. It also allows for great flexibility: it’s easy to create a personalised workflow using various tools and approaches to suit the task at hand. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** One limitation of the application is that it does not display all the folders or collections in which a reference is located. This can make organisation and navigation more difficult in complex projects. Additionally, the application would benefit from deeper integration with other productivity and knowledge management tools such as Obsidian or Notion, to better support connected and flexible research workflows. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** It brings together most major research tasks in one place—from finding references, supporting reading and knowledge extraction, to assisting with writing and citation management. ### 4. Essential Tool for Academic Research and Reference Management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Umesh D. | Web Developer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2025 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** Mendeley is so easy to maintain, store, and cite research papers. It saves so much time with the ability to auto extract metadata from PDFs and seamless integration with Word for citations. I especially enjoy the citation generator, cloud syncing, and browser plugin, all helping to centralize my academic sources and streamline my workflow. Natural interface, device-to-device access, and group work collaborative folders make it an effective instrument for solo research and team work. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** Sometimes the PDF viewer feels a bit clunky compared to PDF readers. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** - Prevents manual handling of citations and references. - Centralizes research documents, notes, and metadata within a well-structured library. - Saves time with automated generation of citations and formatting. - Streamlines research workflow through cross-device synchronization and cloud storage. - Streamlines collaboration through shared folders for collaborative projects. - Aids in fast searching and filtering of academic material. - Aids in achieving consistency and accuracy in referencing between documents. ### 5. Literature Bank **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** SALAIMANIMAGUDAM M. | PhD , Civil Engineering, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 04, 2025 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** As a researcher, even one needs a reference manager, Mendeley will surely fulfill that requirement. Ease for collaboration and cloud storage. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** Nothing. In the new update, they missed a duplicate publication finder option, but now they have it in the update, so I am happy about everything. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** While writing a review article and even in a thesis, it will be helpful. We can even edit the referencing style or choose as per the journal format. ### 6. The practical side of Mendeley: Between citations and synchronization. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 14, 2024 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** Mendeley allows me to sync my libraries across multiple devices. I can annotate PDF files directly on the platform to either underline text, add margin notes or make comments that I can then use for reference in classes. One feature I take great advantage of is the Word add-in that makes it easy to insert citations and generate bibliographies automatically to save time. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** Although Mendeley automates many tasks related to citation management, maximizing its usefulness requires a solid knowledge of academic citation standards. Without that foundation, it can be confusing. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mendeley is perfect for sorting, tagging, and searching references quickly and efficiently; it helps me create thematic folders to group relevant articles, and stored references from past projects are available for my future research. ### 7. Free reference manager **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lorenzo S. | Director, E-Learning, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 11, 2022 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** The add-ons for the web browser and Microsoft Word allow you to quickly add our references and automatically format the citations, as well as change the citation style at any time. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** It presents problems when a new reference is added; you have to manually synchronize in the application, which takes time, and this is not done automatically. **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** Create work groups to build bibliographic reference bases ### 8. Best reference manger available **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Management Consulting | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 05, 2023 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** I love that mendelt seamless integrates as a browser extension and as a desktop app to work with Microsoft word. It makes adding full references and i text citations a breeze. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** Occasionally, authors names end up strangely out of order based on comma placement in the abstract, and I have to fix this mannually **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** Med leg makes managing large numbers of references and citations a breeze, especially when coworking with others on a large literature review. It also makes it easy to highlight exactly where a reference point came from so that I can look at it later or others can see my thoughts in collaborating functions. ### 9. Helping me with referencing **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nadhia M. | Lecturer, Education Management, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2023 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** sorting my references and have variety of format. it also safekeeping all of my articles and help me to note down all of my notes **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** sometimes the format of references are not aligned with the current format and i have to re do again in my files **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** mendeley help to navigate and group my references accurately. i dont need to add my references manually because mendeley help me with that so less work for me ### 10. Mendeley - A Student's Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Swapnil B. | Data Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 03, 2023 **What do you like best about Mendeley?** I have used Mendeley for my thesis, and it has been amazing to use. The multi-devices support along with syncing capabilities is efficient to work with. Integrations with MS Word is easy as well. **What do you dislike about Mendeley?** The refresh button needs to be pressed everytime you need to resync when using a live connection and the newly add doesnt directly show. Other than that its great! **What problems is Mendeley solving and how is that benefiting you?** I used it for my Thesis. The main objective was to keep track of all the 100 + references for me. And the one-click bibliography is just cherry on top. The formatting of the references is just a click away! ## Mendeley Discussions - [Why Elsevier is insisting on changing Mendeley functionalities](https://www.g2.com/discussions/why-elsevier-is-insisting-on-changing-mendeley-functionalities) - 1 comment, 2 upvotes - [Why is Mojave not supported after a year of release?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/15989-why-is-mojave-not-supported-after-a-year-of-release) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is Mendeley used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-mendeley-used-for) - 1 comment - [Is mendeley free to use?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-mendeley-free-to-use) - 2 comments - [What do you know about Mendeley software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-do-you-know-about-mendeley-software) - 1 comment ## Mendeley Integrations - [Chrome Enterprise](https://www.g2.com/products/chrome-enterprise/reviews) - [Microsoft Word](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-word/reviews) - [Overleaf](https://www.g2.com/products/overleaf/reviews) ## Top Mendeley Alternatives - [EndNote](https://www.g2.com/products/endnote/reviews) - 4.1/5.0 (181 reviews) - [ReadCube](https://www.g2.com/products/readcube/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (171 reviews) - [EasyBib.com](https://www.g2.com/products/easybib-com/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (151 reviews)