Bibcitation vs CitePlain

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.

CitePlain creates citations and bibliographies from web pages, journal articles, books, tweets, YouTube videos, and podcasts. It accepts URLs, DOIs, or ISBNs, and uses publisher citation and Open Graph metadata, with Crossref lookup for DOIs and Open Library for ISBNs. The free plan includes APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 17, Vancouver, CSE, and BibTeX, plus a bibliography builder for up to 50 sources per batch. The extension for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox can read metadata from the active tab and provide BibTeX with a stable cite key for Overleaf or Zotero. Pro adds 24 specialised styles, batch URL import for up to 50 sources, and cloud storage synced across the web app and extension. Free-tier references stay in browser local storage. Pro costs $4.99 a month or $39 a year. Lifetime options are listed at 89.00 USD once and 199.00 USD once. CitePlain describes its focus as individual citations rather than replacing a research reference manager.