What are the differences between Mendeley and Zotero?

Mendeley and Zotero are both prominent reference management software solutions facilitating citation and bibliography creation; a core difference lies in their primary affiliations and feature emphasis, with Zotero being independent/open-source and Mendeley owned by Elsevier. Their core functionality enables users to organize references and generate citations effectively. Zotero is distinguished by its open-source nature, strong browser integration for direct capture, robust word processor plugin functionality (LibreOffice, Word), and flexible community-created style support. Mendeley excels in PDF management features, including detailed annotation tools, PDF metadata extraction, and discovery capabilities leveraging Elsevier's Scopus database. While Zotero generally allows unlimited free cloud storage for basic references and PDFs (with paid storage tiers), Mendeley offers a set free PDF storage limit (typically 2GB). Collaboration also differs, where Mendeley integrates tightly with its own collaborative platform and Elsevier profiles. Selection largely hinges on workflow requirements: Zotero is advantageous for precise citation formatting across numerous styles, direct web capture, and independence from commercial publishers. Mendeley offers superior PDF handling and annotation directly within its desktop client and provides unique literature discovery features linked to Scopus. Both integrate with academic writing suites (MS Word, LibreOffice) to generate bibliographies, significantly enhancing research efficiency and manuscript preparation accuracy.