CiteMe vs CitePlain

CiteMe helps students and researchers generate citations from academic indexes and check reference details. Enter a DOI, ISBN, URL, PubMed ID, or paper title to format source metadata in styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, and ABNT; more than 10,000 CSL styles are available on demand. Reference Checker compares references with returned records and surfaces DOI, year, and title differences for review. Sources can be imported from bulk identifiers, PDFs, pasted bibliographies, Lattes CV publications, manual entries, and BibTeX or RIS files. CiteMe lists sources including OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, CrossRef, PubMed, Europe PMC, Google Books, BASE, HAL, and arXiv. Access includes web, Chrome and Firefox extensions, a Microsoft Word add-in, Google Docs, a ChatGPT app, and an API with 40+ endpoints. The free plan is listed at free. A Thesis Pass costs $8.99, paid once for 30 days of Pro without subscription or renewal. Pro’s monthly price is not displayed.

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.