EndNote and Mendley are the preferred reference management software tools at CSIRO and are supported by the Library Services team. Zotero is a free, open-source software that offers some of the same features. Use the table below to compare features to determine which is the most appropriate software for you.
EndNote |
Mendeley |
Refworks |
Zotero |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Puchase through the IMT Software Centre (Microsoft) or the Managed Software Centre (Mac OS X) $150 |
Free Institutional Subscription (100GB Register your Mendeley account using your CSIRO email address ) |
Free Institutional Subscription (Create a RefWorks account using your CSIRO email address) |
Free desktop software and 300MB online storage |
| Institutional access | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Currently supported by the Library | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Library training available | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Operating system | Windows, Mac | Windows, Mac, Linux, | You should be able to access your Library on any operating system but the RefWorks Citation Manager is only available on Windows 10 & 11, MacOS 10.15+ and iOS | Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS |
| Browser | N/A | Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari | You should be able to access your Library in any browser. Save to Refworks should work on any modern browser | Web Library should work in all browsers. There are connector plugins to save items to your Library for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari |
| Desktop Application | Yes | Yes | No, cloud based | Yes |
| Official Mobile application | Yes | No | No | Yes (ioS) |
| Word processor integrations (plug-ins) |
Yes (MS Word, LibreOffice, Pages) | Yes (MS Word, Libre Office) | RefWorks Citation Manager for Microsoft Word and Google Docs | Yes (MS Word, Libre Office, Google Docs, others through third-party plugins) |
| Web platform | Yes (Create account) | Yes (Create account) | Yes (Create account) | Yes (create account) |
| Syncing among platforms | Yes | Yes | No, as entirely cloud based | Yes |
| Annotate/highlight PDFs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Add tags and notes to citations | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Search collection and PDFs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works with LaTeX / BibTex | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (using 3rd party plugins) |
| Private Groups | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Public Groups | No | No | No | Yes |
| User Community Network | No | No | No | Yes (forums) |
| Built-In Citation Formats | >200 List of citation styles in EndNote |
> 10 000 Mendeley fetches styles from the CSL citation styles repository |
Yes Thousand of styles available |
> 10 000 Zotero comes with several popular citation styles and other styles can be found in the Zotero Style Repository |
| Sharing / collaboration | Share references with groups EndNote guidance on how to share references in different versions of the software |
Share references with groups Information on collaborating with private groups in Mendeley |
Folders can be shared to anyone, restricted to CSIRO staff only or to only those who you choose (via email). Sharing can be made granular (ie. read-only, annotation allowed, folder contents modifiable) | Share references with groups Information on public and private groups with Zotero |
| Free storage | Desktop version: Unlimited local storage | Unlimited local storage & data syncing; 1GB personal & 100MB shared online space | Storage is unlimited | Desktop version: Unlimited local storage. 300 MB online storage |
| Developer | Clarivate | Elsevier | Clarivate |
Corporation for Digital Scholarship (non-profit) |
| Developer support | EndNote site; Phone support (human) | Mendeley site; user community | RefWorks Knowledge Center and Support via site | Zotero site, user forums |