CiteMaker vs CitePlain

CiteMaker helps students and educators create bibliographies and reference lists, either automatically or manually. Citations can start from a book ISBN, website URL, DOI, or imported BibTeX. For ISBN searches, users can choose Google, ISBNdb, Open Library, or WorldCat. Listed styles include APA 6 and 7, Chicago, Harvard, MLA 8 and 9, Oxford, and Turabian, and the site offers forms for generative AI citations. Its guided forms flag required source details; as users enter information, CiteMaker creates in-text citations and sorts references alphabetically. Completed lists can be copied or exported to email, MS Word, Google Docs, or PDF. Registered users can save reference lists and retrieve them later. CiteMaker describes itself as online software for PC, iPad iOS, and Android tablets, and lists Android, iOS, and web platforms. A free plan and a 30-day trial are listed. The registration form says a yearly subscription fee applies after the trial. The site also provides Student and Educator registration options.

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.