Bibcitation vs Citation.js

Bibcitation is a free web and browser-extension tool for creating citations, bibliographies, references, and works cited. It can automatically cite books, journal articles, and websites. Supported styles include MLA, APA, Chicago, IEEE, and more than 9,000 other formats, with CSL tools used for formatting. Users can copy a bibliography or export work to Google Docs, Word, and other popular formats. Add-ons are listed for Chrome, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word. The free plan costs nothing, and the homepage states no usage limits. Organizations can add a custom citation button to a webpage through a book ISBN link; that free integration currently supports books only. Bibcitation’s privacy policy says browser data may include browser type, language, referring site, requested pages, request time, and potentially IP addresses. Collected information is stored and processed in the United States. The policy is marked last updated September 24, 2020. Users must be at least 13, or older where local rules require it.

Citation.js converts reference data into CSL-JSON and formats references in styles such as APA and Vancouver. It accepts inputs including BibTeX, BibJSON, DOI, and Wikidata, as well as identifiers such as ISBN, PubMed and PMC IDs, GitHub repository URLs, and npm package URLs. Supported formats include JSON, CSL-JSON, BibLaTeX, RIS, YAML, CFF, and Zenodo Deposit JSON. Identifier resolvers include DOI Content Negotiation, Google Books, OpenLibrary, NCBI’s Literature Citation Explorer, and the Wikidata MediaWiki API. A modular package structure lets users add format and identifier-source plugins as needed; preloaded styles and locales are available for formatted references. Citation.js supports Node.js and browsers, offers a web interface and API, and includes a command-line interface for reading input files, text, or standard input and writing output files or standard output. Example applications include an HTML API wrapper, a Chrome extension for Dutch NWO ISAAC publication data entry, and a BibTeX generator. It is MIT-licensed open-source software, available free.