CitApp vs Citation.js

CitApp helps students create formatted citations from links or DOIs and organize research sources on the web or through a Chrome extension. It supports websites, journal articles, books, PDFs, reports, Wikipedia, news, theses, and videos, retrieving metadata from CrossRef, PubMed, arXiv, and Google Books. Citation options include 17 built-in styles, more than 130 journal and university CSL styles, and custom styles. A Google Docs add-on inserts citations at the cursor and updates the reference list. The free plan imports Zotero, Mendeley, and EndNote libraries and exports to Word, BibTeX, and RIS. The extension saves pages and PDFs, including files behind logins, to a project. Invite links let signed-in collaborators view and add sources. Academic Shield checks wording similarity, section fit, and citation support. Free includes unlimited in-app sources, 10 browser captures weekly, 30 Docs insertions weekly, and 10 Shield checks weekly. Pro costs SEK 99, paid once and removes weekly limits.

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.