Compare the Top Reference Management Software for Windows as of April 2025

What is Reference Management Software for Windows?

Reference management software helps researchers, students, and academics organize and manage their sources and citations for writing papers, articles, or reports. These tools enable users to collect, store, and categorize references from books, journals, websites, and other sources. They often include features for generating citations and bibliographies in various formats (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.), saving time and ensuring accuracy. Many reference management tools integrate with word processors, allowing users to easily insert citations and create reference lists directly within their documents. Additionally, these platforms often provide collaboration features, making it easy to share and manage research projects with team members. Compare and read user reviews of the best Reference Management software for Windows currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    ReadCube Papers
    Search across your favorite scholarly search engines (in app and via our handy browser extensions) and enjoy 1-click downloads to quickly add references & full-text PDFs to your library. Check out our personalized recommendation engine and related article feeds to ensure you never miss an important paper again. Papers helps you focus on the task at hand with our full-screen Enhanced PDF reader. Highlight, underline, strike through, make inline notes, draw and add sticky notes. Switch between different documents with tabs, view supplemental files or jump to referenced articles - conveniently linked inline. Papers automatically identifies and matches imported articles with not only the complete metadata, but also available supplemental data, citations and full-text (if available). Papers users can create private shared collections to collaborate with up to 30 other Papers users at a given time. Simply add your collaborator by email and they will be added to your shared folder.
    Starting Price: $3 per month
  • 2
    nXr

    nXr

    NXR Systems

    nXr reference manager breaks away from the existing managers by optimally integrating three modules (nXr.iNote, nXr.iLibrary and nXr.iCite) to facilitate: - Faster note and image collection in a note and image searchable library - Direct citation based on notes, images as well as article titles for accurate citing or quoting. - Easy sharing of all cited materials (e.g., notes or images) for easy and accurate reviewing and reading. You can also create a single user–group switchable library for your research group which automatically anonymously integrate all group articles and annotations and make them available to all group users. To become the best reference manager equipped with next-generation tools for performing reproducible impactful research by managing information overload, nXr strives to incorporate new features supported by data analytics and AI.
    Starting Price: $3/month/user
  • 3
    Citavi

    Citavi

    Lumivero

    Whether you just need a quick bibliography, you're searching a team library of 20,000 sources, or you want to keep track of notes, Citavi's tools help you work faster and more effectively. Big projects with tons of sources can feel overwhelming. Break your work down into tasks, keep track of important information from your articles, and sift through your sources to find the ones you really need – alone or in a team. Citavi is the only reference management program for teams that gives you the option of storing your information on your own server instead of in the cloud. Individuals can also choose between local and online projects. Citavi automatically creates backups so you never lose your information. Say goodbye to wasted time formatting citations and bibliographies. Citavi offers over 10,000 citation styles: APA, Chicago, MLA, Turabian, etc., etc. Need one that's not there? You can create it yourself or ask us.
  • 4
    wizdom.ai

    wizdom.ai

    wizdom.ai

    With comprehensive and current insights, wizdom.ai helps you explore the rapidly evolving research landscape to assist with your next ground breaking idea. Have all the critical insights about research at your institution and globally, to monitor, evaluate and boost your performance. wizdom.ai provides publishers invaluable intelligence about global research publishing to help them distinguish the most promising research. Track powerful, in-depth analytics about your complete publications portfolio including authors, impact, subject areas and competition. Discover emerging research areas through analysis of global publications, citations and grant trends to launch new journal. Integrate the world’s largest research knowledge graph right on your website to enrich your content and empower readers. Lead your industry using comprehensive analytics to determine and shape the future of your breakthrough research.
  • 5
    Mendeley

    Mendeley

    Mendeley

    Add papers directly from your browser with a few clicks or import any documents from your desktop. Access your library from anywhere. Windows, Mac, Linux and all browsers. Generate references, citations and bibliographies in a whole range of journal styles with just a few clicks. Build your personal Mendeley library to organize, search and read all your references. Also available: Mendeley Cite, the new citation add-in for Microsoft® Word, takes the time out of referencing. Being able to work seamlessly is vital to you. So, as well as searching your Mendeley library and inserting individual or multiple references and bibliographies in just a few clicks, with Mendeley Cite you can: Cite without having Mendeley Desktop open or even installed, minimizing potential performance loss.
  • 6
    Zotero

    Zotero

    Zotero

    Zotero is the only software that automatically senses research on the web. Need an article from JSTOR or a preprint from arXiv.org? A news story from the New York Times or a book from a library? Zotero has you covered, everywhere. 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 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.
  • 7
    JabRef

    JabRef

    JabRef

    JabRef was founded 2003 and has since been used by many students and researchers. Our mission is to advance knowledge and improve scientific research. We value open access to information and believe modern science can built on an open institutional structure. This is why we develop JabRef as free open-source software and save your data in a simple text-based file format with no vendor lock-in. Fetch complete bibliographic information based on ISBN, DOI, PubMed-ID and arXiv-ID. Complete and improve bibliographic data by comparing with curated online catalogues such as Google Scholar, Springer or MathSciNet. Automatically rename and move associated files according to customizable rules. Customize and add new metadata fields or reference types. Organize articles based on keywords, tags, search terms or your manual assignments. Native BibTeX and BibLaTeX support, perfect for text-based typesetting systems such as LaTeX and Markdown.
  • 8
    Qiqqa

    Qiqqa

    Quantisle

    Qiqqa keeps all your PDFs secure and makes them instantly accessible and searchable across all your devices. Automatic identification, tagging and categorization of your PDFs means you never have to go hunting for that missing paper again. Capture all your tags, comments, highlights and annotations while you read your PDFs inside Qiqqa, online at your workstation or offline on the go. Then when you want to review what you have read, use powerful annotation reports so you never again forget those important snippets of information. Qiqqa guides you through your literature by understanding your research niche. It then highlights the most specific and the most influential papers in that niche. Qiqqa also lets you find what next to read by following citations, authors and keywords. Using Qiqqa's themes and annotation reports, you are literally presented with everything you should cite in each section of your paper.
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