Zotero
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, share research and cite your research sources directly in your favourite word processor, with 300 MB free online storage.
Cost / License
- Freemium (Subscription)
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Microsoft Edge
- Google Chrome
- Safari
- Microsoft Word
- Google Docs
- LibreOffice
- Mozilla Firefox
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
Integrations
- Browser
LibreOffice
Microsoft Office
Obsidian
Google docs
Features
- Knowledge Management
- Export to LaTeX
- PDF annotation
- Library Management
- Ad-free
- Cross-references
- Works Offline
- Dark Mode
- File Tagging
- Citations
- Cloud Sync
- Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
- Built-in viewer
- Full-Text Search
- No registration required
- Support for MarkDown
- Portable
- Real time collaboration
- Save web page for offline use
- WebDAV Support
- Compatible with Microsoft Office
- Importing from webpages
- WebDAV Sync
- Tagging
- Multiple languages
- Synchronization
- Export to CSV
Tags
- Firefox Extension
- Google Chrome Extension
- citation-management
- Metadata Extraction
- chromium-extension
- bibliography-management
- online-memory
- Note Synchronization
- EPUB Reader
- EPUB
- notes-management
- generate-bibliographies
- bibliography
Zotero News & Activities
Recent News
- POX published news article about Zotero
Zotero launches Android app with PDF annotations, library sync, and barcode scanningResearch assistant Zotero has launched an official Android app, enabling researchers to access and ...
- Maoholguin published news article about Zotero
Zotero 7 launches: modern design, dark mode, and enhanced performance for researchersZotero 7 has launched with significant updates to enhance usability and performance, and a complete...
Recent activities
AllCitations added Zotero as alternative to AllCitations- Diatomee added No registration required as a feature to Zotero
- Diatomee rated Zotero
- forkingpaths liked Zotero
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What is Zotero?
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, share research and cite your research sources directly in your favourite word processor, with 300 MB free online storage.
Zotero helps you organize your research any way you want. You can sort items into collections and tag them with keywords. Or create saved searches that automatically fill with relevant materials as you work.
Zotero instantly creates references and bibliographies for any text editor, and directly inside Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs. With support for over 100,000 citation styles, you can format your work to match any style guide or publication.
Zotero can optionally synchronize your data across devices, keeping your notes, files, and bibliographic records seamlessly up to date. If you decide to sync, you can also always access your research from any web browser.
Zotero lets you co-write a paper with a colleague, distribute course materials to students, or build a collaborative bibliography. You can share a Zotero library with as many people you like, at no cost.
Zotero information
Developed by
Corporation for Digital Scholarship Licensing
Open Source and Freemium product.Pricing
Subscription ranging between $2 and $10 per month + free version with limited functionality.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 4.3Alternatives
79 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
- Spanish
AlternativeTo Categories
News & Books, Web Browsers, Backup & Sync, Education & Reference, File Management, Office & ProductivityApple AppStore
- Updated
- 4.66 avg rating
GitHub repository
- 13,096 Stars
- 919 Forks
- 1566 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
In addition to doing what it's supposed to do, it has super nice features: Clean interface, importing papers/pages directly from the browser (using Mozilla Connector extension), adding notes and attachments, exporting the full library in BibteX format, the amazing available plugins (like Zot_Bib_Web by David Reitter).
Plugins don't seem to help with quotes: https://www.zotero.org/support/plugins
Simple, excellent UI, efficient organizing everything. Local backup and easy to restore.
Excellent desktop version. Web version could be a little faster to use but overall still gets the job done easily enough. The fact it keeps stuff cloud saved and syncs across devices is very handy. Free version not too limiting.
It is simply the best References Manager available, with fast development of new features, an amazing team of developers listening to users, and a strong community of users. Zotero is completely open source. It has been developed steadily for over 16 years. Together with the open source development of the software, this gives you strong confidence that your data is safe and will never be locked away by the company as others are doing. It is free to use locally on your computer. You only pay for online storage if you want to sync your data online. From Zotero 6, it is now possible to open PDF files directly within Zotero, and make annotations. This was the key feature that made me jump from Mendeley. I have used many different Reference Managers. Importing references in Zotero with the metadata and PDF files from the publishers websites with the browser extension is by far the highest quality in Zotero compared to the other Reference Managers I have used. And the developers are constantly listening to users for cases where it still needs to be improved.
I just updated from Zotero version 5 to 6 They changed the note editor and all the notes they had written before were messed up. Even the note editor has been changed to a more stupid bullet style. (What the hell did TinyMCE change to?)
I rolled back to version 5, but my database has been upgraded to version 6 and I can't open it.
There is one more thing that I have been dissatisfied with for a long time. If they can already be equipped with Rich Text Editor, the function to preview the saved html file can be implemented. Nevertheless, the html files saved by the web clipper cannot be previewed. In fact, you have to double-click to open all files, not just html. Only pdf files can be previewed with the plugin.
It was great, until they decided to change the notes (from tinyMCE to ProseMirror). After losing most of the formating my notes I end up with the poorest editor I ever saw: you can't even use shortcut to add links, you can't edit and customized the source HTML codes of the notes anymore.