Free Zotero Alternatives for Mac

There are many alternatives to Zotero for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best free Mac alternative is Mendeley. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Zotero and 14 are free and available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free Mac alternatives to Zotero are JabRef, Research, Bibliography.com and BibDesk.

filter to find the best alternatives

Zotero alternatives are mainly Research Managers, but if you're looking for Academic Research Tools or Document Managers you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Mac, Open Source, Research Manager and Free. You can also filter by region, for example EU-based alternatives if you prefer software developed in the European Union. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Zotero.
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Alternatives list

  1. Mendeley icon

    Mendeley

     294 likes

    Mendeley helps manage and share academic knowledge: Mendeley Desktop is free academic software (Windows, Mac, Linux) for organizing and sharing research papers and generating bibliographies with 1GB of free online storage to automatically back up and synchronize your library...

    89 Mendeley alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    Generate Bibliographies in Word and OpenOffice
     
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    2
    Mendeley vs Zotero Comments
    John Fastman
    Positive
    27

    Mendeley differs from Zotero like this: 1) It is not open source, but it's still free (as in beer); 2) it has better features for annotating pdf files; 3) It emphasizes connections between academics working in similar areas, which helps in discovery of references. Zotero doesn't do that. However, Zotero is better at extracting meta data from pdf files and has the superior browser plugin.

    Nick Scientist
    Positive
    2

    Mendeley is not open-source. After the migration to the Mendeley Reference Manager which has been a disaster in performance for the desktop apps, exhibit buggy behavior, are much more taxing to computers. Web plugin much better in Zotero too.

    • Mendeley is Freemium and ProprietaryZotero is Freemium and Open Source
  2. JabRef icon

    JabRef

     106 likes

    Bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Microsoft Edge
    • Vivaldi
    • Google Chrome
    • Mozilla Firefox
    JabRef screenshot 1
     
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    2
    JabRef vs Zotero Comments
    Guest
    Positive
    3

    Open source, clean, robust. Works best with BibTex/Latex environment.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Guest
    Positive
    0

    Screen clear with all important informations easily readible. Avoid import of existing records and efficient merge compared to zotero !!! So no duplicate. We can create many librairies and we are not limited to one big with every records in, so quicker when you have a lot of references.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    • JabRef is Free and Open SourceZotero is Freemium and Open Source
  4. Research icon

    Research

     5 likes

    The Research app is designed to streamline your workflow, offering a minimalist yet powerful platform for collecting, organizing, and analyzing research materials.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Linux
    Research screenshot 1
     
  5. Bibliography.com icon

    Bibliography.com

     3 likes

    Bibliography.com is a free, easy-to-use multi-platform bibliography and citation generator that automatically generates accurate citations for students and teachers. It’s the world’s fastest and most accurate citation generator and management tool.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Online
    • iPhone
    • Chrome OS
    • iPad
    • Software as a Service (SaaS)
    Bibliography.com screenshot 1
     
  6. BibDesk icon

    BibDesk

     24 likes

    BibDesk is a bibliographic reference manager for Mac OS X. BibDesk is designed to help organize and use bibliographic databases in BibTeX .bib format.

    36 BibDesk alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    BibDesk screenshot 1
     
  7. SCIENTILLA icon

    SCIENTILLA

     21 likes

    Scientilla is a new approach to give the scientific community an open, free, accurate, tidy and up-to-date production reporting solution.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  9. wizdom.ai icon

    wizdom.ai

     24 likes

    wizdom.ai (formerly colwiz) is a free and comprehensive research management software for researchers, academics and students. With the wizdom.ai android app, you can search, add and manage publications in your wizdom.ai library on the go. Sync instantly across wizdom.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • Android Tablet
    • iPad
    wizdom.ai screenshot 1
     
  10. Paperlib icon

    Paperlib

     3 likes

    An open-source and simple academic paper management tool.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Google Chrome
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Safari
    Paperlib screenshot 1
     
  11. Refeus icon

    Refeus

     8 likes

    Refeus is a software to simplify scientific work. Refeus supports the complete workflow from collecting and managing content and publications to write and publishing documents.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  12. bibus icon

    bibus

     5 likes

    Bibus is a bibliographic database. It uses a MySQL or SQLite database to store references. It can directly insert references in OpenOffice.org and MS Word and generate the bibliographic index.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    bibus screenshot 1
     
  13. TextCite icon

    TextCite

     9 likes

    Program for organizing and commenting textual citations from texts (books, articles, or other published works) for use in producing scientific or academic publications.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    TextCite screenshot 1
     
  14. Cite This! icon

    Cite This!

     2 likes

    Use this extension to generate MLA, AMA, and APA-style citations for the websites you visit. Please send comments and feature requests/bugs to citethis@angelforge.org. Look for the Note icon in your Add-on Bar.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Firefox
    Cite This! screenshot 1
     
12 of 14 Zotero alternatives