Compare the Top Free Reference Management Software as of July 2025

What is Free Reference Management Software?

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 Free Reference Management software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Logically.app
    Logically.app (formerly Afforai) is the AI-powered reference manager for modern researchers, helping researchers manage, annotate, cite papers and conduct literature reviews with AI reliably. Logically.app was built to assist every kind of researcher, whether you are a student, professor, or researcher of 50-years. Logically boasts other features that aid researchers in their workflow, including, auto-populated citations on every upload, a file viewer allowing users to make annotations, shared libraries, and more. If you are new to researching, or don’t have the time to overcome a learning curve, Logically might be better suited to you, as you can achieve full functionality out of the product in a short period of time, also, people looking to conduct reliable research through leveraging AI would be very well suited to using Logically.app.
    Starting Price: $0/month/user
  • 2
    EasyBib

    EasyBib

    EasyBib

    EasyBib is an intuitive information literacy platform that provides citation, note taking, and research tools that are easy-to-use and educational. EasyBib is not only accurate, fast, and comprehensive, but helps educators teach and students learn how to become effective and organized researchers. We cite according to the 8th and 7th ed. of MLA, 7th ed. of APA, and 16th and 17th ed. of Chicago (9th ed. Turabian). Many of our styles are powered by CSL, the Citation Styles Language from CitationStyles.org, which are licensed under a CC-BY-SA license. We check your paper against billions of sources using technology similar to Turnitin. Our institutional business, consisting of EasyBib School Edition and ResearchReady, provide solutions to build the foundation or writing skills and help students practice those skills.
    Starting Price: $9.95 per month
  • 3
    NoodleTools

    NoodleTools

    NoodleTools

    NoodleTools is an online research management platform that promotes critical thinking and authentic research. Students stay organized as they evaluate information, build accurate citations, archive source material, take notes, outline topics, and prepare to write. Three differentiated levels support individual students across grades and abilities. The classroom environment allows librarians and teachers to provide feedback, monitor individual contributions to group work, and view statistics about source use. In contrast to an auto-cite, auto-evaluate product, we support students to engage deeply in research and produce original work. NoodleTools is also designed with online student privacy in mind. Recognize and evaluate relevant, credible sources. Generate accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago references with personal help from experts. Make connections, develop original ideas and articulate arguments.
    Starting Price: $15 per year
  • 4
    scite.ai
    scite is a Brooklyn-based startup that helps researchers better discover and evaluate scientific articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by researchers from dozens of countries and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health. Improve the discoverability of your articles and raise the profile of your publications by indexing them with scite. scite reports attract thousands of users a week and generate significant traffic for publisher partners. Support current authors and attract new ones by providing them with data on how their research is being received, whether its been supported, or contrasted and the overall context of citations to their work.
    Starting Price: $7.99 per month
  • 5
    BibBase

    BibBase

    BibBase

    BibBase.org is the easiest way to set up and maintain a scientific publications page. Users simply maintain a list of publications and BibBase does the rest. The list can be either a BibTeX-file or come from DBLP, Zotero, or Mendeley. Whenever the user's page is visited, BibBase dynamically renders an always-up-to-date publication list. In addition, BibBase adds all publications to a database where they are indexed by keyword and can be searched. There are a number of ways for you to generate your BibBase page. These options are sorted from most to least recommended. Once you have selected your source and your publication list has been generated, you will be given instructions on how to embed it on your page. Sign up for one of our premium plans to get a personal website hosted by BibBase. This makes it even easier to maintain your web presence and publications list. You can create your website for free using our easy-to-use yet powerful website editor.
    Starting Price: $4 per month
  • 6
    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
  • 7
    Sorc'd

    Sorc'd

    Sorc'd

    We created Sorc'd to help people: be more productive; strengthen and share relevant information from reliable sources; and be less frustrated with the overwhelming amount of information. Recall digestible pieces of information from your cloud-based account or discover new ones from others. Add snippets from your online repository to your writing or share via social channels. Capture snippets from your browser when researching with our free Chrome extension. Then integrate those snippets into your content directly from Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Sheets. Sorc'd is a free Google add-on for the Google Office Suite offering the best and most convenient way to: 1.) import snippets of valuable information directly from Sorc'd into a Google Doc, Google Slide or Google Sheet, and 2.) export snippets of information from within a Google Doc, Slide or Sheet that you may want to reference later, import into new content, share with colleagues or directly through social outlets.
    Starting Price: $15 per month
  • 8
    Sciwheel

    Sciwheel

    Sciwheel

    Save references directly from the web, including Google Scholar and PubMed. Whenever you come across an interesting article we’ll save the web link, full citation data and the PDF (when available). You can see your notes and co-author comments without leaving your document. Once you make a note, you can easily search to find them. Notes are accessible wherever you view the article or PDF on the web. Our algorithm suggests articles to ensure you never miss an important paper. You can also search for related articles while writing your paper. Find your references and search multiple databases, all within Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Automatically generate your bibliography in one of 7,000+ styles. Never miss an important article with Smart citation suggestions*. Read, annotate and save articles from any computer, mobile or tablet (Android and iOS). Have all your references, notes and suggested articles available across your devices.
    Starting Price: $9.95 per month
  • 9
    MyBib

    MyBib

    MyBib

    Generate formatted bibliographies, citations, and works cited automatically. Cite websites, books, journals, and videos automatically, just search with the title or an identifier. Create bibliographies and citations quickly and accurately. APA, MLA, Chicago & Harvard styles supported (plus others!). 100% free. No ads, privacy trackers, time limits, or restrictions. Super fast! Be done with citing in minutes, not hours. MyBib is a free bibliography and citation generator that makes accurate citations for you to copy straight into your academic assignments and papers. If you're a student, academic, or teacher, and you're tired of the other bibliography and citation tools out there, then you're going to love MyBib. MyBib creates accurate citations automatically for books, journals, websites, and videos just by searching for a title or identifier (such as a URL or ISBN).
  • 10
    CiteDrive

    CiteDrive

    CiteDrive

    CiteDrive is a cloud-first, collaborative, BibTeX-native reference manager designed by and for Overleaf, LaTeX, and R Markdown users. It was designed from the ground up to stay out of your way so you can focus on writing. CiteDrive was born out of a shared desire among our team, friends, and colleagues that managing references felt so cumbersome compared to today's consumer-grade tools and collaborative editors. Worse, there were no really good solutions that were truly designed for LaTeX and R Markdown authors, rather than being an afterthought. CiteDrive continues to focus on refining and simplifying the experience of finding references and citing as you write. After some failed experiments, the first end-to-end solution for Overleaf and R Markdown users was tested in the fall of 2021, and quickly evolved into the platform that exists today.
  • 11
    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.
  • 12
    SciSpace

    SciSpace

    SciSpace

    Access to the right research findings at the right time is critical. Use SciSpace to search from a network of publications and access scientific knowledge in its entirety. SciSpace (formerly Typeset.io) was started as a formatting tool. Over time, interactions with academia helped us realize glaring gaps in the ecosystem and grow into a comprehensive platform that modernizes end-to-end research workflows, from discovery, writing, publishing, to consumption. Create, edit, format, and review documents using a single application specially designed to meet research needs. Make research writing less laborious with 100,000+ verified journal templates. Generate submission-ready manuscripts in no time with one-click formatting. Get access to native English editing and proofreading services. Submit manuscripts with appropriate formatting directly. Automate referencing to make the process less laborious.
    Starting Price: $9.99 per month
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