A. Function: Endnote, Zotero and Mendeley all have problems with the accuracy of importing Chinese literature data, which can not well support the format of Chinese periodical references and correctly understand the national standard. These three models are all foreign software, mainly aimed at English authors, so it is understandable that they do not focus on solving the problems of Chinese periodical authors. They didn't list us as the main target customers, hehe. But it is worth mentioning that Mendeley's built-in PDF browser can directly collect English PDF files. This is very powerful. I like it very much. Zotero only supports Firefox browser, which is not suitable for those of us who often use IE.
Domestic software NoteExpress and NoteFirst have done a good job, which can support Chinese documents well. However, NE still has some problems in dealing with the details of the national standard, for example, it can't automatically distinguish the Chinese Pinyin in English documents, and it can't automatically form a bilingual reference between Chinese and English. However, NoteFirst came out late, and the journal style needs to be improved. However, it fully supports the automatic formation of authors who are more suitable for Chinese sci-tech journals by national standards and bilingual references, which is very practical for me who often need to include EI journals.
B. Design architecture: Endnote(Web), Zotero, Mendeley and NoteFirst are online versions, while reference manager, NoteExpress and another domestic software, Medical Literature King, are only stand-alone versions. The advantage of the online version of the software is that users can synchronize their latest personal databases in different places and on different computers. I believe that with the rapid development of the Internet, the online version will definitely become the mainstream product. However, the first two online versions of the above-mentioned software have no clients, so the pure online version of the product may have problems under the current imperfect domestic network development. Only Mendeley and NoteFirst have the same online version and stand-alone design.
C. Price: Endnote and Noteexpress are both paid software, and Endnote is also very expensive, and only institutional users will use it. Mendeley, Zotero and NoteFirst all offer free versions. Functionally, it is enough for an author of scientific journals like me. Of course, doctoral students who want to write a big thesis have to pay some money to use the advanced functions of the software.
Based on the above reasons, I finally chose Mendeley and Notefirst *** to use together, Notefirst is used for document collection and paper writing, and Mendeley is used for PDF file management. This is my personal experience for your reference.