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Comparison

Sidenote vs Sharly AI

Both let you ask a document questions and get answers with sources. The difference is where you work. Sharly AI is a workspace you upload documents and links into, then chat with them there. Sidenote is a browser side panel that reads the page you already have open — a PDF, an article, or a private wiki — and cites it in place.

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Sidenote

A reader that rides along in your browser, on the page you are already on.

Sharly AI

A workspace you upload documents and links into, then chat with them there.

The short answer

Should you use Sidenote or Sharly AI?

Choose Sidenote if…

You read across PDFs, web articles, Confluence, Notion and SharePoint and want answers in place — without uploading anything — with citations that scroll the live page to the exact passage.

Choose Sharly AI if…

You want a shared team workspace for uploaded files, formatted academic citations in APA, MLA or Chicago, a choice of AI models, and enterprise controls like SSO/SAML, audit logs and per-seat admin.

Plenty of people could use both. They solve overlapping problems from different ends — one is a place you upload to, the other rides along with what you already have open.

Compared honestly

Sidenote vs Sharly AI: feature by feature.

CapabilitySidenoteSharly AI
Reads the page or document you already have open Yes No
Lives in the browser side panel Yes No
Works on web articles & live web pages Yes Partial
Works on private Confluence, Notion & SharePoint pages Yes Partial
Citations scroll & highlight the exact passage Yes Partial
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
Chat with a document Yes Yes
Upload your own PDFs Yes Yes
Choice of multiple AI models (GPT, Claude, others) No Yes
Formatted academic citations (APA, MLA, Chicago) No Yes

Two rows go to Sharly AI, and we are not pretending otherwise — see Where Sharly AI is the better tool below. Sharly's team workspace also adds SSO/SAML, audit logs and per-seat admin, which Sidenote does not. The cross-document row is powered by Sidenote Collections. The cross-document row is powered by Sidenote Collections.

The core difference

A workspace you upload to, or a reader that rides along.

Sharly AI is a destination. You open it, upload your PDFs, DOCX, PPTX or spreadsheets — or paste a link — and chat with them inside a shared workspace with formatted citations, a choice of AI models and team controls. It does that job well, but it is a place you go to, separate from the documents in your day.

Sidenote never asks you to leave. It sits in the side panel of every tab, reads what you already have open — a PDF, a Confluence page, an article — and answers in place. Click a citation and it scrolls the real document and highlights the exact sentence.

The difference in one example

Take a live news article or a private Confluence runbook. Sharly AI needs you to get that content into its workspace as a file or a link it can ingest. Sidenote runs in your browser, on your session, so it reads exactly what is on your screen and cites it back to the passage in front of you.

Giving credit

Where Sharly AI is the better tool.

Sharly AI is a capable, well-built research tool, and there are things it does that Sidenote deliberately does not. If these are what you need, Sharly AI is a strong choice:

Formatted academic citations

Sharly AI generates references in APA, MLA and Chicago and lets you switch styles on the fly, pulling titles, authors and DOIs — useful for students and academics writing up sources.

Team workspace & enterprise controls

Shared documents, team annotations, per-seat admin, SSO/SAML, audit logs, version history and role-based access make it a genuine fit for larger teams.

Choice of AI models

Sharly lets you pick the model behind your answers — GPT-4o, Claude and others — from a selector, so you can match the model to the task.

FAQ

Sidenote vs Sharly AI — common questions

If you mostly upload files into a shared workspace and want formatted academic citations, Sharly AI is a solid tool. If you read across PDFs and the wider web — articles, Confluence runbooks, Notion docs, arXiv papers — and want answers in place without uploading, Sidenote is the better fit because it rides along in your browser rather than asking you to bring everything into one place.
Not the way Sidenote does. Sharly AI can ingest a link you paste into its workspace, but it works on the documents and URLs you bring in rather than the tab you are looking at. Sidenote runs inside your browser on your own session, so it reads whatever is on your screen right now — a live article, a paywalled page you have access to, or a private intranet page — with no upload or link step.
Yes, both attach sources to answers, and both link an answer back to its source. Sidenote adds a server-side check: every answer is validated against the passages actually retrieved, so unsupported claims have their citation dropped before you see them, and clicking a citation scrolls the live document to the exact sentence and highlights it. Sharly AI's strength is formatting those sources into APA, MLA or Chicago references.
Sharly AI is primarily a web-based workspace rather than an in-page browser side panel like Sidenote, and we did not find an official native mobile app — you reach it through a browser. Sidenote is a desktop browser side-panel extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera, plus a web app; there is no Sidenote mobile app either.
Both have a free tier. Sidenote is free to install with a 7-day Pro trial that needs no card; paid plans start at £10/month. Sharly AI offers a free plan with daily upload and monthly message limits, with Pro around $12.50/month billed yearly and per-seat Team (about $24/seat/month) and Business plans above it.
Of course. Some teams keep Sharly AI as a shared upload-and-chat workspace with formatted references and a choice of models, and use Sidenote for everything they read in the browser day to day. They overlap, but they are not the same shape of tool.
Try it on the page you are on

Read anything. With citations.

Add Sidenote to Chrome and ask the document in front of you a question. No upload, no new workspace — just the answer, and the passage that proves it.

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