Sidenote vs Docalysis
Docalysis is an upload-first chat-with-files web app: drop in a PDF, TXT, CSV or DOCX, ask questions, and wire it into your own product through its developer API. Sidenote takes the opposite path — it rides along in your browser side panel, reads whatever you already have open, and cites every claim back to the exact passage on the live page.
Reads the document you already have open and cites every claim to the exact passage.
Upload PDF, TXT, CSV and DOCX to a web workspace, chat across a folder, and call it from your own code.
Should you use Sidenote or Docalysis?
Choose Sidenote if…
Choose Sidenote if you read across the web, Google Docs, Notion, Confluence and SharePoint and want every answer cited to the exact passage without uploading anything.
Choose Docalysis if…
Choose Docalysis if you want to upload files into a web workspace, chat across a whole folder, and embed document chat into your own site or scripts through an API.
Both let you chat with, summarise and question your documents on a free tier. The real split is where the reading happens: Docalysis is a place you upload files to, while Sidenote reads what is already in front of you and grounds every answer in the source.
Sidenote vs Docalysis: feature by feature.
| Capability | Sidenote | Docalysis |
|---|---|---|
| Reads the page or document you already have open | Yes | No |
| Works on web articles & live web pages | Yes | No |
| Works on private Confluence, Notion & SharePoint pages | Yes | No |
| Citations scroll & highlight the exact passage | Yes | No |
| Server-side citation check drops unsupported claims | Yes | No |
| Lives in the browser side panel | Yes | No |
| Reads scanned PDFs with built-in OCR | Yes | No |
| Upload your own PDFs | Yes | Yes |
| Chat with a document | Yes | Yes |
| Ask across many documents at once | Yes | Yes |
| Developer API | No | Yes |
| Embed document chat on your own website | No | Yes |
Verified against docalysis.com and its API, FAQ and pricing pages in July 2026. Docalysis supports PDF, TXT, CSV and DOCX uploads; it does not document OCR of scanned PDFs, so we mark that row no. If anything here changes, tell us and we will correct it. The cross-document row is powered by Sidenote Collections.
A place you upload to, or a reader that rides along.
Docalysis is built around uploading: you push a PDF, TXT, CSV or DOCX into its web workspace, then chat with a single file or a whole folder. Its standout is reach beyond the browser — a documented developer API, batch querying and an embed widget let you drop document chat into your own scripts, products and websites.
Sidenote never asks you to upload the thing you are already reading. It sits in the side panel and works in place across PDFs, web articles, Google Docs, Notion, Confluence and SharePoint, and every answer is cited to the exact source passage — click a citation and the live page scrolls to and highlights it. The server re-checks each cited quote against the document and drops anything it cannot ground.
You are reading a 90-page contract inside a Confluence page and a supplier PDF, and you need to know the termination terms. With Docalysis you would download and upload each file, then chat with the folder. With Sidenote you open the side panel on the pages you already have, ask once across both, and click each citation to jump to the exact clause on the live page.
Where Docalysis is the better tool.
Docalysis does several things genuinely well, and if your workflow is upload-and-integrate rather than read-in-place, it may fit you better than Sidenote.
A real developer API
Docalysis exposes documented endpoints to upload files, chat with them and batch-query in your own programs — something Sidenote does not offer.
Folder chat on every tier
You can drop several files into a folder and chat across all of them at once, with multi-file chat available even on the free plan.
Embed and batch tooling
Beyond the chat UI, Docalysis lets you embed chattable files on your own website and run batch queries across documents, which suits product and workflow integrations.
Sidenote vs Docalysis — common questions
Read anything. With citations.
Add Sidenote to your browser and ask your next document a question — the answer comes back cited to the exact passage, no upload required.
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