BibDesk vs Paperpile
BibDesk
bibdesk.sourceforge.io
Paperpile
paperpile.comSide by side
| Figure | BibDesk | Paperpile |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $4.15/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Citation Management Software | 7.9 (#15) | 8.2 (#11) |
| Spec score · Reference Management Software | 7.8 (#19) | 8.2 (#12) |
| Collaboration | It supports sharing bibliographies with colleagues and exporting them to HTML and RSS. | Paperpile describes shared folders, shared libraries, access permissions, and collaborative PDF annotations and citations. |
| Integrations | The maker describes native citation autocompletion integration with most LaTeX editors and mentions PubMed access through protocols including Z39.50 and Entrez. | The pricing page lists Google Drive sync, Overleaf integration, browser extensions, academic database and publisher integrations, and OneDrive sync in beta. |
| Purpose | BibDesk edits and manages bibliographies, including bibliographic information and associated files or web links. | Paperpile describes itself as a home for research papers and says its goal is to simplify collecting, managing, and writing papers. |
| Support | The homepage links to a help book, wiki, user and developer mailing lists, bug reporting, and feature requests. | Paperpile directs questions to [email protected]. |
Plans
Paperpile
- Regular$4.15 a month
- Expert$5.75 a month
- Enterprise and InstitutionsPriced on request
In their own words
BibDesk
BibDesk has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Paperpile
Paperpile is a reference manager for collecting, organizing and writing with research papers. It can import references, extract PDF metadata, organize libraries with folders and labels, detect duplicates, repair metadata and search collections. Plans include unlimited storage for research PDFs. Citation support includes more than 10,000 styles, with plugins for Google Docs and Microsoft Word. Shared folders and libraries, access permissions, and collaborative PDF annotations and citations support group work. The Android and iOS apps sync with the web library and support highlights, notes and drawn annotations. Users can also search 150 million articles across sources including PubMed, arXiv and CrossRef, and save PDFs with one tap. Integrations include Google Drive sync, Overleaf, browser extensions, and academic databases and publishers. Regular costs $4.15 a month and Expert costs $5.75 a month, with all plans billed annually; a 30-day trial is available. New sign-ups are currently available on Chrome, while Safari and Firefox access is in beta.