CitePlain vs PaperGuide PDF Citation Generator

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.

PaperGuide PDF Citation Generator extracts bibliographic metadata from PDF files and formats references in styles such as APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Vancouver, and Harvard. The free generator works without signup or an account. Created citations appear in a bibliography saved in the browser, where they can be copied or exported. Paperguide is also a wider research platform for literature reviews, systematic reviews, and evidence synthesis. AI Search synthesizes answers from more than 200 million papers and links claims to sources. Reference Manager imports from Zotero and Mendeley and accepts papers by DOI. The Chrome extension captures papers and metadata, retrieves PDFs, generates citations from a library, and supports chats with webpages or papers. Paperguide MCP connects research-paper search and management to Claude, ChatGPT, or another MCP client. Systematic Review includes dual-reviewer screening and PRISMA reporting. The web and extension are available, with a free tier and paid plans from $12/user/mo (annual).