Comparison

EndNote vs Zotero

EndNote lands on Depends, and Zotero lands on Worth it.

EndNote

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy it if your institution provides a site license or you run heavy systematic reviews in Microsoft Word.

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Zotero

Worth it

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you write papers or manage more than a handful of sources . it is free, open source, and taught by university libraries.

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EndNote versus Zotero
Compare	EndNote	Zotero
Verdict	Depends	Worth it
Best for	Systematic review teams	Grad students and academics
Who it's not for	Students and solo researchers on a budget	Casual bookmarkers . browser folders suffice
Privacy	Low-to-moderate risk: one reported XSS on (marked patched); a US VA advisory notes a product vulnerability.¹⁵	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.
Support quality	No direct support-quality evidence found	Docs and community forums only
Public sentiment	Longtime users praise its Word integration and systematic-review muscle, while many academics on Reddit complain about bugs and recommend free Zotero instead.^⁵	Users and librarians consistently call Zotero the best free reference manager, especially for students and literature reviews.
Biggest gotcha	Standalone is $275 one-time; confirm whether future major versions cost extra^²	Sync storage is capped on the free tier; large PDF libraries push you into paid plans

Pick EndNote when

Systematic review teams
Word-heavy academic writers
Institutions buying site licenses
Researchers with large libraries and strict journal styles

When EndNote is not a fit

Students and solo researchers on a budget
Anyone writing the occasional paper . a free tool suffices
LaTeX/BibTeX users . JabRef or Zotero fit better
Teams wanting free, web-based collaboration

Pick Zotero when

Grad students and academics
Literature review-heavy projects
Group bibliographies and labs
Zero-budget researchers

When Zotero is not a fit

Casual bookmarkers . browser folders suffice
Teams wanting AI research summaries
Market research teams needing survey platforms
Firms requiring vendor SLAs and dedicated support

Sources

EndNote official siteendnote.com
official
EndNote pricing guidecasrai.org
news
EndNote free trialendnote.com
official
EndNote Pricing 2026 . TrustRadiustrustradius.com
review
EndNote Reviews . G2g2.com
review
EndNote video reviews . G2g2.com
review
EndNote customer reviews . Trustpilottrustpilot.com
review
EndNote is terrible . Reddit r/PhDreddit.com
review
Is EndNote really the best reference manager? . Reddit r/PhDreddit.com
review
Resource Review: EndNote 21 desktop version . PMCpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
review
EndNote vs Zotero . Paperpilepaperpile.com
review
Citation management alternatives . Duke University Librarymclibrary.duke.edu
news
EndNote guide . McMaster University LibGuideslibguides.mcmaster.ca
official
EndNote . Harvard Medical School ITit.hms.harvard.edu
official
Open Bug Bounty report for endnote.comopenbugbounty.org
security
EndNote . VA Technical Reference Modeloit.va.gov
security