--- title: "Mendeley Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice" description: "Reviews of Mendeley. Learn how real users rate this software's ease-of-use, functionality, overall quality and customer support. Talk to our advisors to see if Mendeley is a good fit for you!" source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/mendeley-profile/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [Note-Taking Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/) / [Mendeley](https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/mendeley-profile/) / Mendeley Reviews Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. [Overview](https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/mendeley-profile/) Reviews [Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/mendeley-profile/alternatives/) # Mendeley User Reviews ## Reviews summary - Overall rating: 4.2/5 - Total reviews: 70 ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 4.1/5 - Customer support: 3.7/5 - Value for money: 4.3/5 - Functionality: 4.1/5 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 31 reviews (44%) - 4 stars: 25 reviews (36%) - 3 stars: 11 reviews (16%) - 2 stars: 0 reviews (0%) - 1 star: 3 reviews (4%) ### Most mentioned pros - Its collaboration features and cross-platform sync make managing and sharing research seamless and efficient. - Mendeley excels in organizing references, automating citations, and annotating PDFs. - They can be grouped into different categories which makes it easy to manage them when it is a large volume. ### Most mentioned cons - Also, with some pdf, it is impossible to auto generate the quote and reference and sometimes, the add-in refuse to be integrated to Microsoft Office Word - Additionally, the software does not allow for exporting the entire database with annotations, necessitating a time-consuming process of exporting them one by one. - Its compatibility with certain operating systems is a drawback if you want to implement it in these environments, for example Linux in its Linux Mint distribution presented integration problems that could not be solved easily. ## Mendeley customer reviews Showing reviews 1-25 of 70 (page 1). ### Review of Mendeley - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Shukurath B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Marketing and Advertising - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: December 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The program allows text files and bibliographic references to be organized, enabling their use for a variety of tasks including reading (annotations, bookmarks, etc.) and managing information for research. #### Cons It is a very useful program, I like how Mendeley operates. --- ### Make quote with quality - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Jimmy I. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: April 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. easy, and very useful in academical life #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 2/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros These tools help you to make quotes in different standards, in addition you can ass quotes from internet, pdf, or videos, this is very useful #### Cons the synchronization with the desktop app is very old and request save a file in your pc for do this --- ### Great software that is on the downhill - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Stefanie D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: November 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Mendeley is intuitive and easy to use. I have used the software for years and have enjoyed the annotation feature and ease with which I can use word plug-ins and the various import tools. #### Cons Unfortunately, since Elsevier have taken over Mendeley it is clear there is less investment in the software. Firstly, deleting the iOS app has been a big reason for why I am looking at other reference managers. I used this app to mark up papers which was hugely important to me. The login process is now unnecessarily cumbersome and I am constantly being logged out. There is also fewer opportunities for various plugins to other software (eg Obsidian). --- ### Mendeley for starting a phd - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: François W. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Technology and Services - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: December 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I have found Mendeley to be an incredibly useful tool for organizing my papers and sources. The ability to easily import papers from various databases and automatically generate citations is a huge time-saver. The ability to collaborate with colleagues on shared projects is also a great feature. Overall, I am very satisfied with Mendeley and would highly recommend it to anyone in the research community. #### Cons The interface to be somewhat clunky and difficult to navigate at times. Additionally, the automatic citation generation is not always accurate, which can be frustrating when trying to ensure the accuracy of my work. --- ### Powerful reference manager with lots of functions - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Hakob A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Electrical/ Electronic Manufacturing - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: August 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Mendeley is a very powerful reference/citation manager made by Elsevier. It allows you to automatically import article metadata from various sources, refine them, and cite them in your paper. The software allows you to import/export the citation list in .bib, .ris, and .xml and supports many citation formats such as IEEE, Chicago, Nature, etc. #### Cons Unfortunately, recently Mendeley Desktop was changed to Mendeley Reference Manager. On one hand, the new version is very similar to the previous one, but it still feels a bit strange and non-intuitive. --- ### Can it be better? YES. - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: samuel A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It is the King in the article and referencing sourcing business. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros the fact that it pools all works of others to your screen with ease. No need to work your hustle of logging on to Google Scholar to make any clicks here and there. Super cool. #### Cons Some libraries demand special codes, especially for the Education libraries just like ENDNOTE. --- ### Nice tool for reading and summarizing PDFs - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Shane J. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Government Administration - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I used Mendeley throughout school and continue to use it to organize documents. It's very helpful for learning new methods in a way where the content can be shared with others. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I love the notes pane that lets you take notes directly beside the source document. A large amount of text can be stored there. It helps with organization, too, because notes are always stored with the document. Great tool for students #### Cons It would be nice to have automatic syncing, or an "auto-save" - like feature. I also don't think exported reference lists are formatted nicely. --- ### The best tool for making bibliographic references in an academic environment. - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Eutimio A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I have used Mendeley to import citations in BibTex or RefMan format from different repositories or certified web pages, and these citations could also be integrated into research documents with the help of the extension for Microsoft Word, where with just a few clicks it was possible to add the citation and the bibliography, which was updated as new references were added. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Mendeley allows obtaining the information from documents, this by importing in some format sponsored by academic search engines or directly the document in its PDF format, in any case it presents information from that document in a complete way, so that it is possible to make a citation more easily with its extension for word processing software, such as Word. #### Cons Its compatibility with certain operating systems is a drawback if you want to implement it in these environments, for example Linux in its Linux Mint distribution presented integration problems that could not be solved easily. #### Reasons for switching to Mendeley Working on Windows, Mendeley is easier and more intuitive to use. --- ### Fast and Correct - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Hilal K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: July 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros During the thesis process, it is the most used software. It is a time-saver and eliminates mistakes in the references. #### Cons The only problem is that it doesn't support Google Docs. --- ### Save a lot of work with Mendeley - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Betty R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Biotechnology - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: June 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros It helps you to save time when you want to write a lot of references, and helps you to not lost any one of them #### Cons Sometimes you have to double check when you export the references because it changes some of the names of some journals --- ### Must have reference manager for academic and business/research oriented individuals - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Himanshu S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospital & Health Care - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros The software have ease of multiple user/device integration which is useful in case of using liquidtext for highlighting and snippets and also with r discovery which provides recent article abstract of interest in prospective topic. Having ease of citation editing tools and other notes integration provides seamless article drafting and also make review across topics an informative search #### Cons The restrictions of offline mode software which was introduced few years back makes it online orientation software which makes it difficult in cases wherein article and citation which are available via document require cloud upload when it was previously available in offline mode --- ### Una herramienta indispensable para el investigador - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: William S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Primary/ Secondary Education - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: August 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Mendeley me parece un gran software, me ayuda mucho a la hora de citar rápidamente. Hecho de menos su integración en dispositivos IOS ya que no tengo la opcion de investigar desde el Ipad o el Iphone y añadir bibliografia como lo hago en PC. Compré la aplicación movil, pero nunca funcionó. Creo que tienen mucho potencial de crecimiento, más si recibe una opcion de búsqueda booleana como la ofrece Evernote o una integración como es posible en Obsidian para no tener que depender de otros programas para leer, anotar y hacer síntesis. Por el momento uso Liquid Text para leer PDF, Evernote para escribir y relacionar textos, Mendeley para citar y finalmente Word para la construcción final. Me gustaría no tener que usar tantos programas para eso. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Mendeley es una herramienta indispensable a la hora de recopilar las literatura de mi investigación, su integración con Word mediante CITE es genial y ahorra horas y horas de trabajo cuando te encuentras redactando tu trabajo y quieres honrar el trabajo de otros creadores de contenido documental mediante citas. #### Cons Uno de los puntos fuertes de Mendeley, junto a su conexión con Word, es la posibilidad de usar Tags, o etiquetas. Desafortunadamente el proceso es tedioso pues no siempre se despliega la opción de autocompletar y debes ingresar manualmente la etiqueta, otra vez. Lo que hace que lo piense dos veces antes de hacerlo. ME ENCANTARIA que a nivel de cita APA 7 pudiera tener la opción de elegir entre tipos de cita y no tener que ajustar manualmente cuando es parentética o narrativa. #### Reasons for switching to Mendeley Usé la herramientas de citas de Word durante un semestre y luego me moví a Mendeley. Mendeley ganó ampliamente a Word en cuanto a funcionalidades y fiabilidad. No hay paralelo en cuanto a la posibililidad de contener los documentos originales, etiquetas, integración web, respaldo de las citas, búsqueda, notas, base de datos propia de Mendeley, etc. Zotero es muy similar y gratuito. Pero al ser libre no goza de las opciones y el respaldo de Elsevier. La posibilidad de tener grupos de investigación compartiendo librerias es genial. Además la cuenta universitaria ofrece un gran almacenamiento. No se si Zotero tenga esto. --- ### I have already recommended Mendeley to my research team! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Leah H. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospital & Health Care - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros The feature that I have appreciated most about Mendeley over the past few years is the integration with citations and the MS Word plugin. This can be a very difficult aspect of a manuscript to manage and Mendeley Cite has saved me hours of work. The web importer has also been a favourite tool. #### Cons There was one journal that I submitted a manuscript to that required a unique variation on a common citation style. It was not easy to adjust one small item from one of the templates. Thankfully, a colleague new code and was able to adjust it for me somehow. That process could have been a little more intuitive. --- ### hard to use but i need it - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Tamara M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: July 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It's ok - i think the continous having to log in again and the having to refresh in word if you add a new source is quite annoying. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros I like that it just formats my bibliogrpahy once i have the source in there and that i can add it to microscoft word #### Cons i think it's unfortunate that i can't search for key words that i might safe with that source someitmes i dont remember the title of the paper and would like to add some notes that i can search for. #### Reasons for switching to Mendeley its free --- ### Mendeley for your Data ! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Oussama R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Import and Export - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for free trial - Reviewed: July 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. As for me, I relied on Mendeley a lot during my doctoral studies to prepare my various research papers, and he was very helpful in that. I recently discovered that I can rely on it effectively in preparing my practical and marketing reports, organizing my data and even qualitative analysis, and I plan to rely on it more at work as it is a useful and inexpensive way #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros The application is often used by the academic community such as university professors and doctoral students, however, it can be used for various purposes in the field of business. The Mendeley application gives your reports greater reliability, transparency, and organization of different information sources, that is, it helps to prepare professional reports. Moreover, it is a popular way to organize and analyze your information, especially qualitative information that is difficult to organize and arrange compared to quantitative information. The application is free, so it is available to almost everyone, and it is easy to use, as it is enough to practice it a little to master it. #### Cons It needs more comprehensiveness and flexibility in the way the data entered is presented I think it is very important to provide multiple options for displaying data in the way that the user and the customer prefer --- ### The perfect tool for bibliography management - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Oscar M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Mendeley has proven to be a cornerstone of my thesis-writing. Whether I'm storing articles for future revision, making notes for my thesis, or managing citations, Mendeley handles it all with an ease. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Mendeley simplifies the daunting task of organizing and formatting references during my Thesis writing as a researcher in university. Its interface is intutive. Something I like from this tool is that it allows me to effortlessly import references from various databases, and the automatic citation feature. #### Cons I have not found any important drawback. However, occasional slow sync times occurs. --- ### Mendeley, Tu gestor de citas bibliograficas ideal - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Ignacio M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Mechanical or Industrial Engineering - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: February 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered La empecé a usar por estudios y es actualmente mi software principal para gestionar citas bibliotecas #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros La facilidad con la que se pueden agregar citas a documentos con la implementacion del software #### Cons No es muy compatible con los móviles a pesar de poderlo usas en linea --- ### Keep your references in order. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Mariana N. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Is super easy to start using it, and the more you dig, more useful things you find. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros As a student, references and bibliography are super important. Mendeley helps you to insert, update and find all the references you need to present your work as a pro. #### Cons Some features are not presented first hand, more tutorials are need it. --- ### one of Scientists’ preferred citation software - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Jiabao Z. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Biotechnology - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for free trial - Reviewed: December 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Mendeley and endnote are both easy to use, each has its own advantages and disadvantages #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Compared to others, I think Mendeley is free. Although it only provides a limited inner village, it seems to be sufficient for master or undergraduate students. What's more important is that it has powerful Pdf reading function. Compared with Endnote, web page conversion is also very convenient #### Cons But it seems that I am more accustomed to using Endnote, which may be related to the subject. My statistics friends prefer to use mendeley. In addition, mendeley synchronization capabilities seem to be limited #### Reasons for switching to Mendeley because it is free to use --- ### Mendeley - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Ibraheem U. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Education Management - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It help me in research writing and reporting #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros It's integration to MS Word and other word processing packages #### Cons More should be done offline user experience --- ### Buon software di gestione documenti - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Lorenzo V. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Mechanical or Industrial Engineering - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for free trial - Reviewed: February 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Facile da usare, elevate potenzialità, e si può interfacciare con altri programmi (es. office word) #### Cons Un pò pesante, e a volte il pc non riesce a caricare velocemente il programma --- ### Satisfied - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Pritha A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Biotechnology - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: October 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Inexpensive, does its job pretty well. Note taking is good. Collaboration is okay. #### Cons Wish it had a feature to recognize existing reference. Search tool is not great, can be improved. --- ### Clunky - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Madhur T. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Aviation & Aerospace - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: August 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros I think the best thing about this is that its available for free. #### Cons Its clunky and lacks support. I would rather pay and have better features. --- ### Favourite reference manager - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Flavia R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Research - Company size: 5001-10000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: March 2025 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It is a very good tool for managing bibliographic references. They can be grouped into different categories which makes it easy to manage them when it is a large volume. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros You can create groups to sort and manage your references and it also identifies if you have any uncategorized or duplicate ones. The reference finder is also useful. #### Cons The notebook set up could have more writing tools, such as highlighting, different font sizes, bold and others. --- ### Essential in the field of research and science - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Valentina C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: E-Learning - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2025 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered First use due to having to write the speializzazione thesis. Application perhaps not famous to non-“ people in the field” and needs, in first use, watching a tutorial/instructions. Once set up and known, you never leave. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Excellent link with Word (office) to create in a few steps, almost automated, bibliography of a text #### Cons Access can be cumbersome if you do not have an institutional email ## More reviews [Next reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/note-taking/mendeley-profile/reviews/?page=2) --- Mendeley Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice