What's the Differences between Mendeley and Zotero Reference Manager?

Mendeley and Zotero are both reference managers, but they differ in several key areas. Mendeley is known for its strong PDF management and social features, while Zotero excels at handling diverse research materials and collaborative work with flexible sharing capabilities. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

Mendeley:

• PDF Focus: Mendeley is particularly good at managing and annotating PDFs, offering an integrated PDF viewer. 
• Social Features: Mendeley has a strong social component, including a network for connecting with other researchers and sharing research. 
• Cloud Storage: Mendeley offers 2GB of free cloud storage for your library. 
• User-Friendly Interface: Mendeley is known for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design. 
• Metadata Extraction: Mendeley is efficient at extracting metadata from PDFs, but may require manual adjustments for other sources. 

Zotero:

• Versatile for Diverse Sources:

  Zotero is designed to handle a wide variety of research materials, including PDFs, webpages, books, and more. 
• Open Source and Customizable:

  Zotero is open-source, allowing for a high degree of customization through plugins and extensions. 
• Flexible Sharing and Collaboration:

  Zotero offers flexible sharing options, including creating public groups for collaboration and sharing references with individuals or groups. 
• Metadata Extraction:

  Zotero is good at extracting metadata from webpages and can also retrieve metadata from dragged-in PDFs. 
• Citation Style Support:

  Zotero supports a wide range of citation styles and allows users to create custom styles.