Zotero

Free, open-source reference management software for collecting, organizing, citing, and sharing research sources with browser integration and collaboration features.

Pricing:freemium

Cost:Free unlimited storage for metadata; Cloud storage at $20/year (2GB), $60/year (6GB), $120/year (unlimited)

Last Updated:12/3/2025

Visit Website →

About

Zotero is the most popular free and open-source reference manager, trusted by millions of researchers, students, and academics worldwide. It automatically captures citation information from websites, databases, and library catalogs with a single click, stores PDFs and documents, and generates citations and bibliographies in thousands of styles. Zotero integrates seamlessly with word processors, making it easy to cite sources while writing. Its group libraries enable research collaboration, and its extensibility through plugins adds features like AI-powered reading assistance and note-taking integrations. As an open-source tool funded by academic institutions, Zotero has no commercial interests and prioritizes user needs and data ownership.

Business Intelligence

Company

Corporation for Digital Scholarship

⭐

Market Recognition

Well Known

Known in industry

Momentum

Stable

Key Features

✓Automatic citation and bibliography generation
✓Browser connector for one-click saving
✓PDF annotation and note-taking
✓Group libraries for collaboration
✓Cloud sync across devices
✓Word/Google Docs integration
✓Thousands of citation styles
✓Organize with collections and tags
✓Advanced search
✓Open-source and extensible
✓AI plugins available

Use Cases

→Academic reference management
→Research paper organization
→Citation and bibliography generation
→Collaborative research projects
→Literature review
→Thesis and dissertation writing

Integrations

Microsoft WordGoogle DocsLibreOfficeBrowser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)ObsidianNotionOverleaf