Add to Chrome
Comparison

Sidenote vs Sider

Both live in your browser's side panel; Sider does a bit of everything with many models, while Sidenote does one thing deeply, reading your documents with a citation on every claim.

Add to Chrome (free)See the citation demo
Sidenote

One job, done deeply: document reading with a verifiable citation on every answer.

Sider

Many jobs in one sidebar: models to pick from, writing, translation and web chat.

The short answer

Should you use Sidenote or Sider?

Choose Sidenote if…

You want trustworthy reading of documents (summaries, chat, glossary) with citations that scroll to the source, across your wikis, PDFs and the web. Focused, citation-checked reading rather than a do-everything sidebar.

Choose Sider if…

You want one AI sidebar for everything: many models to pick from, writing help, translation, image tools and general chat across the whole web.

Plenty of people use both. They solve different halves of the same problem.

Compared honestly

Sidenote vs Sider: feature by feature.

CapabilitySidenoteSider
Builds a retrieval index over the documents you openYes Partial
Citations scroll & highlight the exact passageYes Partial
Server-side citation check drops unsupported claimsYesNo
Read-only connectors for Confluence, Notion, SharePoint & Google DocsYes Partial
One-click glossary of jargon & acronymsYesNo
Per-document Store / Discard retention controlYesNo
Summarize & chat with the page you're onYesYes
Upload & chat with PDFsYesYes
Choice of many AI models (GPT, Gemini, Grok…)NoYes
Built-in translationNoYes
Broad toolkit (writing, image, web search, agents)NoYes
Free tierYesYes

Last reviewed: 3 July 2026.

Sider wins on breadth (many models, translation, a whole toolkit) and we're not pretending otherwise. See Where Sider is the better tool below. The cross-document retrieval row above is powered by Sidenote Collections.

The core difference

A generalist for everything, or a specialist for reading.

Sider is a Swiss-army knife: many models, writing, translation, image tools, web search. If you want one assistant for the whole web, it's a strong pick.

Sidenote does one thing and goes deep: retrieval across your library, a citation on every claim, and a click that scrolls you to the source. The trade is breadth for depth. See how the citation system works end to end.

The difference in one example

Ask “what does the contract say about termination?”: Sider gives you a capable answer from the page context. Sidenote retrieves the relevant clause, checks the answer against it, and scrolls you to the exact sentence to confirm it.

Giving credit

Where Sider is the better tool.

If these are what you need, Sider is built for it:

Many models in one place

Pick between GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more for each task: a model marketplace Sidenote deliberately replaces with ‘we pick the right one’.

Translation & languages

Strong built-in translation and a large non-English user base. Not something Sidenote focuses on.

A broad everyday toolkit

Writing, image generation, web search and agent features in one sidebar. Sidenote stays narrow on reading.

Reading mostly PDFs? See how Sidenote handles them, scanned pages included. Comparing more than one assistant? Read Sidenote vs ChatGPT next.

FAQ

Sidenote vs Sider: common questions

If you want one AI sidebar that does a bit of everything (many models, writing, translation, image tools), Sider is the broader product. If your job is reading documents and you want to trust the answers, Sidenote is the focused choice: it retrieves across the docs you open and pins every answer to a source passage you can jump to.
Depth and trust. Sidenote builds a retrieval index over the documents you open (so it answers across many pages, not just the one in view), checks every answer server-side against the retrieved passages and drops unsupported claims, scrolls the document to the exact cited sentence, and offers a one-click glossary. It's built specifically for reading you need to rely on.
No, and that's deliberate. Sidenote picks the model for the job: a fast model for everyday chat, a stronger one on the higher tiers for dense documents, and a cheap one for summaries and glossaries. You don't manage models; you get good answers. Sider's strength is the opposite: a model marketplace you choose from.
For grounded reading, Sidenote's citation rigor is the differentiator: answers are validated against the retrieved passages and every claim links to the source. Sider is excellent for general-purpose assistance across the web, but it isn't built around verifiable document citations.
Easily. Some people keep Sider as a general AI sidebar and reach for Sidenote when they need cited answers about a specific document or wiki. Different jobs.
Both have a free tier. Sidenote's free plan covers everyday summaries, explanations and glossaries, with an opt-in 7-day Pro trial that needs no card; paid plans start at £10/month. Sider offers several low-cost paid tiers across its broad toolkit.
Sidenote, if citation rigor is what you need. It builds a retrieval index over the documents you open, checks every answer server-side against the retrieved passages, drops any claim the text doesn't support, and scrolls the document to the exact cited sentence when you click through. Sider can point to a page it browsed, but it isn't built around verifying a claim against a specific passage the way Sidenote is.
It can link to a web page it used while browsing, but it doesn't consistently pin an answer to the exact sentence it came from or check the claim against that passage first. Sidenote's citations are narrower in scope (the documents you open), but every one is checked against a retrieved passage and scrolls you straight to it.
Try it on a document

Reading you can trust.

Add Sidenote to your browser, open a document, and ask. Every answer comes with the passage that proves it.

Add to Chrome (free)See pricing

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