BibDesk vs ReadCube Papers
BibDesk
bibdesk.sourceforge.ioReadCube Papers
about.readcube.comSide by side
| Figure | BibDesk | ReadCube Papers |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $7.92/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 6 |
| Spec score · Citation Management Software | 7.9 (#15) | 8.1 (#12) |
| Spec score · Reference Management Software | 7.8 (#19) | 8.1 (#13) |
| Purpose | BibDesk edits and manages bibliographies, including bibliographic information and associated files or web links. | ReadCube is a platform to discover, read, organize and cite scientific literature. |
| Support | The homepage links to a help book, wiki, user and developer mailing lists, bug reporting, and feature requests. | Enterprise plans include dedicated support, training and onboarding, while the site provides a help center and support-ticket channel. |
Plans
ReadCube Papers
- Essentials$10 a month
- Plus$20 a month
- Essentials$95 a year
- Plus$185 a year
- EnterprisePriced on request
- TeamPriced on request
In their own words
BibDesk
BibDesk has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
ReadCube Papers
ReadCube Papers brings scientific literature discovery, reading, organization, and citation into a platform for individual researchers and teams. Its research answers draw on 165M+ publications and 182M+ patents. Readers can annotate PDFs with highlights, underlines, drawings, notes, and sticky comments. The AI assistant answers questions about a library and compares up to 20 papers, but is available only in the web version. Saved searches can add new papers to a library and send daily, weekly, or monthly alerts. For systematic reviews, it supports dual-reviewer screening, custom data-extraction forms, AI autofill, and PRISMA exports. A browser extension imports articles from Dimensions, PubMed, Google Scholar, and journal websites, with associated PDFs when possible. ReadCube can connect to Overleaf, and enterprise workflows can link libraries with systems including Veeva Vault, SharePoint, and Salesforce. It runs on Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, and the web, with an API and browser extension. Essentials costs $10 a month; Plus costs $20 a month per user. Both have a 30-day trial, and there is no free plan.