Paperpile Reviews - Pros & Cons, Ratings & more

Connecteam

Confluence

KnowledgeOwl

Mendeley

Airtable

Paperpile is a knowledge management software designed to help businesses synchronize the research library with multiple devices. Administrators can utilize the search functionality to find papers in real-time on a unified interface.

Paperpile

Android

Web-based

iPad

iPhone

Once, it stopped working and just gave me errors for all of the references and I had to go through and re-enter all of the references again. That was a frustrating experience.

Love the chrome extension and add to paperpile button. Customer support exists unlike other free apps and is awesome.

I often work on multiple computers and I don't want to have to install new software everywhere I go. It's great for citations, but I like it even more for managing my pdf library.

I am happy with the current functionality. I am a heavy google suite user, so the Paperpile UI integration with chrome and google doc perfectly fits my need.

Affordable for a poor PhD student; super easy & intuitive to use - seamless integration with Google docs allowing for collaborative writing projects.

Easy to import content found online and easy to cite within docs including google docs. I also like the feature where you can highlight the title and copy and paste it turns it into a full citation.

I like being able to export my annotations and highlights to markdown. The import button is also excellent.

Really like how easy it is to add papers to your library on Paperpile straight from the browser, as well as the Google Docs plug in which makes adding references to collaborative projects really easy.

Paperpile integrates wonderfully with Google docs, allowing easy use for managing citations. It also keeps PDFs of my articles which I can read and markup within the software.

I have a difficult time managing my own folder and the shared folder. The paper search is horrible.

Secondly, when editing the pdf of papers, the position I want highlighted will move to the position with one row above. This problem is really annoying sometimes.

This tagging feature is most useful when I am in the middle of writing and want to quickly look for a paper of interest.

It’s so easy to use and manage. Because you can tie it to Gmail accounts, I always recommend it to other researchers and Grad students because of our (“unlimited”) University storage.

It's very easy to organize and find literature. Extremely user friendly.

The low cost also makes it easy to recommend to Grad students.

Paperpile's cost is relatively minimal for academic users and it doubles as a very effective document annotation software.

I had to open chrome, which is not my favorite web browser. And sometimes it's slow to import paper (chrome extension is not working fast).

When I’ve had questions, a customer service rep. Responds quickly and helpfully.

Google Drive

Publication and reference manager for the 21st century

A fast, easy-to-use paper manager

Very good, although Zotero is making headway!

Promising, but slow development

We appreciate the feedback, Marc, and can't help but agree - our development has been rather slow, at least in terms of user-facing features, and continues to be uncertain at times. The good news is that we intend to release several new features / updates soon, and a more robust search (with more criteria and full-text search) is at the top of the list. I've also added your +1 to the topic of a public API on our internal tracker!

Best citation manager for adding, tagging, and exporting citations. 

Thanks for this thoughtful feedback, Patrick. The request for hierarchical tags has come up before, so I've added your +1 to the topic on our internal tracker for the team's consideration!

Overall, it's a great product. I was always excited to use the collaborative features, but I did a lot of solo research so funny get to use it much.

Paperpile is my go to

That's quite the compliment, Christopher - thanks for sharing your experience. An overhaul of our note-taking system has been planned for a while and should see the light of day soon(ish), so you can expect some improvements in that regard. Other former (and current) Qiqqa users have also sung praises for their more advanced features, so it's already on our radar.

I use Paperpile everyday for viewing and reading literature for research. It’s so easy to use and manage. Because you can tie it to Gmail accounts, I always recommend it to other researchers and Grad students because of our (“unlimited”) University storage. The low cost also makes it easy to recommend to Grad students.

Paperpile for Education Research

Thanks for the nice feedback, Ethan! We do hope to implement better support for touch / stylus features - the request is on our list so I've added your +1 to the topic. I'm not sure if we have plans to offer the PDF viewer as a standalone app, but it's not unlikely (it actually used to be one) after we take it from beta to general availability.

Although major citation managers like Zotero are free, Paperpile is the best option for a Chromebook. Paperpile's cost is relatively minimal for academic users and it doubles as a very effective document annotation software.

Annotation features are extremely useful

Thanks for the feedback! Glad to read our PDF annotator has proven useful for you. We intend to enable direct upload/import to folders as part of upcoming general updates. 

Reference data is coded in PDF files by publishers - we are only able to parse what is already there, which sometimes isn't much. If some information is detected, though, our Auto-Update (Shift-A) feature could accurately match with online sources.

organization of many, many medical articles into individual and shareable folders. 

Great product with lots of great features!

Thanks for the nice feedback, Sarah! You can actually select individual articles and hit Shift-S to get a link / share via email (or click the Share option that appears in the top menu bar). 

Rather than copying selected text, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-C in your library copies selected reference(s) in the full bibliographical form of whichever style is chosen via Settings. Text you select on our interface can be copied via the regular right-click menu. You can check out other keyboard shortcuts by clicking your email on the top right corner > Keyboard Shortcuts, or simply hitting the ? key. Hope this makes sense - let us know otherwise!

It is truly a good app and its worth what it costs. I use it everyday. 

Easiest and the best out there

Easy to use

Thanks for the feedback. Implementing full-text search from the library is in our near future, along with some other advanced search functionalities. More details to come on our next newsletter!

I'm generally quite happy with PaperPile. Seamless integration Google Drive and the ability to direct-add papers is really useful. It works across most platforms and is relatively easy to collaborate across.

Spend the money - better than Zotero

Thanks for the nice feedback, Matthew! We do have short-term plans to support other browsers like Safari and Firefox. In the meantime, Paperpile runs in any Chromium-based browser (like MS Edge, Brave, Vivaldi) in case you'd like an alternative to Chrome. We've also had plans to improve our sharing/collaboration features for a while; hopefully we'll be able to push them to production soon.

I am extremely happy with Paperpile, can’t imagine without it

Life Savor 

Glad to read Paperpile has been so useful for you, Pritha! Highlighting and annotating PDFs is actually possible with our beta viewer, which you can activate from the top right corner of your library by clicking your email > Settings > Browser Integration > PDF Viewer and selecting 'Viewer with annotations (beta)'.

Great for clinical research

Thanks for the nice feedback, Mike! We're continuously working to expand our data detection capabilities. Our Word plugin (https://paperpile.com/word-plugin/) includes the ability to convert from/to Google Docs - do you find it is still not working properly? If so, we'd like to hear more via chat or email (support@paperpile.com).

The process of citing sources and storing them has been streamlined for me in my research which saves time and money. 

Streamlined and easy

Thanks for the feedback, Rena! Indeed, this is one of the limitations our integration with Google brings. We intend to implement alternative sign-up options soon; this will make us more independent from the Google environment and less prone to this type of issue.

Excellent paper organization software

Absolutely recommend Paperpile

Thanks for this lovely feedback, Penelope <3 If any issues or questions do arise in the future, please don't hesitate to reach out as usual via chat or email (support@paperpile.com)

pros and cons

Overall I have had a great experience with paperpile and it has made my PhD/Research life substantially easier, I will keep using it after my PhD due to this fact. 

Paperpile review

We appreciate the feedback, Hermanth. Please feel free to drop us a line via chat or email to describe the difficulty you've experienced editing folders - we'd be interested in hearing more about your experience.

I enjoy using paperpile. It helps me a lot in organizing my references!

Some Feedbacks

Great software! Some quirks but if you compose with google docs and for teamwork 

great product

Thanks for the feedback, Chris! Please feel free to reach out to us via chat or email if you experience any clunky/laggy behavior you'd like to report or simply discuss - we'd be happy to troubleshoot.

Great way to organize articles!

Your feedback and enthusiasm are much appreciated, Katie! Thanks for reaching out via chat about the proxy configuration - hope things are running smoothly.

I've had a great experience with Paperpile as it keeps all my references well-organized and I love that my references back up to Google Drive.

One of the best reference managers out there!

It's ok. We used Mendaley before and it has glitches. At least Paperpile didn't crash for no reason for me yet. 

Search feature needs improvement. Overall ok. 

Thanks for the feedback Catherine! Improvements for our search functionalities (including general & targeted folder search) are actively being worked on - there should be a beta soon. As for saving papers from shared folders, selecting the ones you need and dragging them to the desired folder should automatically save them to your library and add them to that folder. Please feel free to reach out via chat or email (support@paperpile.com) if you find that doesn't work as expected or have any further comments to share.

Paperpile Review

Glad to read you're so pleased with Paperpile, Kivanc! We intend to continue building on the foundation we've laid to offer an increasingly seamless experience across platforms. 

A desktop app is a solid long-term goal, towards which our Word plugin has been an important first step. Support on other browsers like Safari and Firefox is something we should have good news about much sooner than that. In the meantime, Paperpile runs in any Chromium-based browser (like MS Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, etc) in case you'd like an alternative to Chrome.

Paperpile Reviews

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