Papis vs Sciwand

Papis is a free, open-source command-line manager for documents and bibliographic records. It stores records in human-readable YAML files and lets users search by fields such as author, title, and tags. Importers can bring data from other bibliography managers and retrieve metadata from sources including arXiv and Crossref. Records can be exported to BibTeX and other formats. The project lists plugins for Vim, Neovim, and Emacs, plus integrations with rofi, dmenu, Zotero, and Firefox. Third-party Python entry-point plugins can add importers and downloaders, and a Python API supports custom scripts. A local web app starts with `papis serve`; the documented address is `http://localhost:8888`. Installation is described through pip, source code, Arch Linux AUR, Nix, and Guix. The project directs questions to GitHub Discussions and bugs to GitHub Issues. If no importer exists for a website, users may need to download its PDF and enter metadata manually.

Sciwand is a desktop research app that combines reference management, document reading, research analysis, and academic writing. Its AI columns can score papers, screen them as yes or no, extract findings, and build structured datasets across documents. Library chat answers cite source sentences and let users jump to the relevant page in a paper. Sciwand can search academic databases and apply AI screening to search results. Its Markdown writer supports more than 10,000 citation styles; a Microsoft Word add-in for Windows and macOS is described as being in beta. Supported files include PDF, Word, EPUB, Markdown, plain text, and saved web pages. The app syncs one-way with Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, and Bookends without modifying the existing reference library. The site says library files, annotations, and notes are stored on the user's disk, with optional configurable cloud sync. The Free plan is billed forever and includes core reading, organizing, and writing tools, with AI free for 7 days. The Lifetime license costs $29.99 as a one-time purchase and includes unlimited AI features, using the user's API key or local models.