Food for Thought:
This chart lists a few features of each manager. It should be noted that, although certain managers are better for different purposes (ex. Citavi has the most organizational functions), there is not a perfect reference manager. Each is capable of:
- Collecting reference information
- Tracking articles and other resources
- Generating in-text citations
- Generating reference lists
Comparison Chart for Reference Managers:
Chart partially based upon a guide from the University of Guelph-Humber.
Chart Notes and Additional Considerations:
- Zotero has "known accessibility issues for screen reader users" (University of Guelph-Humber, 2021).
- EndNote online has an add-on which allows you to upload PDFs. See the "Add PDFs with EndNote Click" tab, found under "Using EndNote online."
- SciWheel storage: Any single PDF can not exceed 100MB.
- Citavi storage: 5GB is recommended by Citavi, but there is no cap, per say, on storage. Any single PDF can not exceed 100MB, other files "can only be up to 50 MB" (Citavi, 2019).
- Benefit of Zotero and Mendeley: These are the most popular choices. As such, there are more resources for these options, should you run into issues.
References:
Citavi. (2019, May 2nd). What's new in Citavi 6? Citavi 6 Manual. https://www1.citavi.com/sub/manual6/en/index.html?new_in_citavi_6.html, updated: 2019-02-05
University of Guelph-Humber. (2021, February 17). Citation management. LibGuides. https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/citingsources
