What it is

Zotero is a free tool for research sources. It lives in the JavaScript application ecosystem and is listed under Productivity & Utilities / Note Taking & Knowledge Management. The provided GitHub metadata reports 15,272 stars, 1,117 forks, 1,600 open issues, 0 contributors, a repository age of 0 years, and a last push timestamp of 2026-09-14T16:40:51Z. The homepage is https://www.zotero.org, and no topics are listed. The license field is NOASSERTION.

The project addresses the problem of keeping research materials in one place. The tagline says users can collect, organize, cite, and share research in one place, and the GitHub description adds annotation. The README includes a continuous integration badge that links to a GitHub Actions workflow. The README also directs feature requests and bug reports to the Zotero Forums, directs troubleshooting to Getting Help, and directs source-code questions to the Zotero documentation. The README does not list a hosted option, Docker image, package manager, or deployment command.

Key capabilities

• Zotero helps users collect research sources.
• Zotero helps users organize research sources.
• Zotero helps users annotate research sources.
• Zotero helps users cite research sources.
• Zotero helps users share research sources.
• The README provides a link to documentation for using the source code.

Who uses it and how

• People who manage research sources can use Zotero to collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share those sources.
• People who need assistance can consult the Getting Help page referenced by the README.
• People who want to report feature requests or bugs can post them to the Zotero Forums.
• People who want to understand the implementation can read the Zotero documentation linked from the README.
• People can reach the project through the homepage at https://www.zotero.org.

Getting started

The README excerpt does not provide an install, run, or deploy command. It points to https://www.zotero.org and the Zotero documentation for more information.

When to use it — and when not to

Zotero is suitable when a user needs a free tool for collecting, organizing, annotating, citing, and sharing research sources. It may be less suitable when a user needs a clearly stated license, because the metadata lists the license as NOASSERTION. It may also be less suitable when a user needs immediate setup instructions, because the README excerpt does not state a package manager, Docker image, hosted option, or deployment command.