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Comparison

Sidenote vs Paperguide

Both let you chat with a paper and cite your sources. The difference is shape. Paperguide is an all-in-one academic suite — a 200M-paper database, literature reviews, a reference manager and an AI writer — that you take your work to. Sidenote is a browser side-panel reader that answers on the document you already have open and scrolls the live page to the exact passage it cites.

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Sidenote

A reader that rides along in your browser side panel, on whatever you already have open.

Paperguide

An all-in-one academic research suite you take your papers to — search, review, manage references, write.

The short answer

Should you use Sidenote or Paperguide?

Choose Sidenote if…

You read across the whole web — papers, articles, Google Docs, private Notion, Confluence and SharePoint pages — and want answers in place with citations that scroll to and highlight the exact sentence, plus a server-side check that drops unsupported claims.

Choose Paperguide if…

You want one platform for the whole academic workflow — searching a 200M-paper database, running automated literature reviews, managing references and citation styles, and drafting with an AI writer.

Plenty of researchers use both. Paperguide for discovery, reference management and writing; Sidenote for reading and verifying each source in the browser once they have it.

Compared honestly

Sidenote vs Paperguide: feature by feature.

CapabilitySidenotePaperguide
Reads the page or document you already have open Yes Yes
Lives in the browser side panel Yes No
Works on web articles & live web pages Yes Yes
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
One-click glossary of jargon & acronyms Yes No
Ask across many documents at once Yes Yes
Large-scale literature / paper discovery No Yes
Reference manager & citation-style export No Yes
AI writer for drafting papers No Yes
Developer API No Yes

Four rows go to Paperguide, and we are not pretending otherwise — see Where Paperguide is the better tool below. The cross-document reading Sidenote does is powered by Sidenote Collections. The cross-document row is powered by Sidenote Collections.

The core difference

A suite you take papers to, or a reader that rides along.

Paperguide is a destination. You go to it to search a 200M-paper database, upload PDFs, run literature reviews, manage references across 1,000+ citation styles and draft with its AI writer. Its Chrome extension can chat with the page you have open too — across journals, publisher sites, blogs and news — but the heart of the product is the web suite you take your work to.

Sidenote never asks you to leave. It sits in the side panel of every tab, reads the paper, article, Google Doc or private wiki page you already have open, and answers in place — and clicking a citation scrolls the real document and highlights the exact sentence. Because it reads your own browser session, it works on pages behind a login that a paper database cannot reach.

The difference in one example

You find a paper on a journal site. With Paperguide you can chat with it and add it to your reference library for the review you are writing. With Sidenote you ask a question right there, click the citation, and the page scrolls to the sentence that answers it — then you do the same on the private Notion notes and SharePoint doc Paperguide cannot open.

Giving credit

Where Paperguide is the better tool.

Paperguide is a broad, capable academic suite, and there are real things it does that Sidenote deliberately does not. If these are what you need, Paperguide is a strong choice:

A 200M-paper database

Paperguide searches across more than 200 million research papers in natural language and answers from the most relevant ones — large-scale discovery Sidenote does not do at all.

A full reference manager

It imports citations from Zotero, BibTeX, RIS, DOI and URLs and supports 1,000+ citation styles, then feeds them into automated literature reviews — a whole reference workflow Sidenote is not built for.

An academic AI writer

Paperguide drafts academic content with in-line citations from your library, so discovery, reviewing and writing live in one place — writing tools Sidenote intentionally leaves out.

FAQ

Sidenote vs Paperguide — common questions

It depends what you need. Paperguide is an all-in-one academic suite — a 200M-paper database, literature reviews, a reference manager and an AI writer, all in one web app you take your work to. Sidenote is narrower and lives in your browser side panel: it reads the paper, article or page you already have open, answers in place, and cites the exact passage. For reading and verifying sources where they live, Sidenote is the better fit; for running a whole discovery, referencing and writing workflow, Paperguide does far more.
Yes, and it is genuinely useful — its extension can chat with the paper or web page you currently have open and save sources to your library, with metadata fetched automatically. Sidenote goes further on reading specifically: it runs in the browser side panel, works on private Confluence, Notion and SharePoint pages behind your login, and clicking a citation scrolls the live page to the exact sentence and highlights it, with unsupported claims dropped by a server-side check first.
There is no documented support for it. Paperguide's extension works across public journals, publisher sites, repositories, blogs and news pages, alongside its paper database and uploaded PDFs — a private company wiki behind your login is not something it advertises reaching. Sidenote runs on your own browser session, so it reads what is on your screen, including private Confluence, Notion and SharePoint pages.
Both show source text so you can verify — Paperguide displays the original text behind an answer. Sidenote adds two things on top: every answer is checked server-side against the passages actually retrieved, so unsupported claims have their citation dropped before you see them; and clicking a citation scrolls the real document to the exact sentence and highlights it, so verifying takes a second rather than a re-read.
No — and it doesn't try to. Paperguide searches 200M+ papers, synthesises across them and manages your references and 1,000+ citation styles, which Sidenote has no equivalent for. Sidenote is for reading the sources you have already found and asking one question across several of them at once with per-document citations.
Both have a free tier. Sidenote is free to install with a 7-day Pro trial that needs no card, and paid plans start at £10/month. Paperguide offers a free plan with monthly AI credits and search limits, with Plus and Pro paid tiers above it (around $12 and $24/month billed annually) and custom Enterprise pricing for teams.
Try it on the paper you are reading

Read anything. With citations.

Add Sidenote to Chrome and ask the paper, article or private page in front of you a question. No upload, no new tab — just the answer, and the passage that proves it.

Add to Chrome — freeSee pricing

7-day Pro trial · No card required · Free tier forever