Zotero

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

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.

Easy to use and powerful. Its integration as web browser extension for saving metadata as items greatly enhances productivity. Can export to and import from many formats, as well generating citations with chosen style. It allows management trough multiple collections and subcollections. Has sync option for cloud and collaboration. Can be further enhanced through extensions built for it, such as Better BibTeX. Also allows tagging and annotation.

As of April 2021, the main issues for me are: it can't do bulk editing, and isn't able to automatically change date format.