Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference management tool and academic network published by Elsevier. It lets you organize your library of publications, annotate PDFs, generate citations and bibliographies, and discover new publications, with a social dimension of sharing between researchers.

What is Mendeley used for?

Mendeley is used to manage research documentation: import and organize references, read and annotate PDFs, insert citations into a word processor, and follow developments in your field. Backed by Elsevier, it integrates with the scientific publishing ecosystem, against an open-source competitor like Zotero.

Mendeley or Zotero?

Against Zotero, open source and independent, Mendeley is owned by Elsevier and fits into its ecosystem. Basic features are similar; the choice depends on preferring a free tool (Zotero) or integration with the Elsevier world (Mendeley).

How much does Mendeley cost?

Mendeley is free for reference management and citation generation, with free cloud storage. Beyond that, paid storage extensions are offered to sync a larger library. Most uses fit within the free version.