Mendeley vs. OneNote

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Mendeley
Score 4.9 out of 10
N/A
Mendeley, an Elsevier company headquartered in London, offers their eponymous reference management software suite, including Mendeley Reference Manager, Web Importer, the Citation Plugin add-on, available in Premium package.N/A
OneNote
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's OneNote is a digital note-taking app, supporting photos, annotating, web page clipping, emailing, and synchronizing notes across devices.N/A
Pricing
MendeleyOneNote
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MendeleyOneNote
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
User Ratings
MendeleyOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
2.0
(6 ratings)
8.1
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(10 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
MendeleyOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
Mendeley
Mendeley Desktop used to be a decent software, and comparatively one of the best among Reference Managers. The new online version is beyond expectations
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Microsoft
In my opinion OneNote is a must for anyone who does business. It’s versatile, stable and sustainable. It can keep private information private - like passwords. It can be used for collaborative work - like standard operating procedures. It is fairly easy to use and far superior to pen and paper. When used for meeting notes, it can be flagged with icons that are searchable - like ideas or important items. You can even create Outlook tasks on the fly
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Pros
Mendeley
  • Easy to use interface
  • The use of font size and style makes information easily discoverable within the article previews
  • Drag-and-drop functions make article indexing particularly simple
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Microsoft
  • Because of its flexibility and ability to hold different types of content (text, images, tables), it is a great tool for collecting content from different resources and organizing it in one place.
  • Technical support analysts are using sections for their support case analysis; they paste pieces of logs, screen-shots, document their steps in troubleshooting etc., all in one section, to get the full picture yet stay organized.
  • The logic of content structure; Notebook>Section>Page>Paragraph, allows you to manage and collect all needed information by the areas of the user's responsibility. For example; each of my projects has its own section, in which each page is a task.
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Cons
Mendeley
  • In my opinion, terrible web-based function in the new version
  • Very difficult to annotate and search in PDF's
  • New version removed many previous functions
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Microsoft
  • The table editing tools are too simplistic and lack the features found in other Office products.
  • Some content loses its rich text formatting when being pasted into OneNote. A workaround is to paste the content first into Outlook or Word and then copy/pasting that into OneNote.
  • Microsoft is moving away from a local install of OneNote, which means notebooks have to be in the cloud in Office 2019. This will actually reduce the usefulness of OneNote in some environments and opens the door to competitor products.
  • Update: Microsoft has now announced that it will continue to support OneNote 2016 through 2023. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/ba-p/954922
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Likelihood to Renew
Mendeley
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As this is not a compulsory tool in our organization, I would say all depends on the decision makers, however since this is a part of MS Office, I am sure we will have it for as long as we will possibly need it. However, I would not be so sure, if it was a separate product
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Usability
Mendeley
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I find OneNote incredibly usable. I'm fairly middle of the road when it comes to tech savvy-ness. The platform was very easy to learn and explore. I like that OneNote is no clunky and offers a clean interface. This is important when it comes to deciding if a tool is usable for multiple people.
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Performance
Mendeley
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Overall, I rate OneNote's performance highly. In general, notebooks, sections and pages load quickly. OneNote integrates with other apps and info ca easily be shared/copied to and from the tool to other tools. Moreover, Notebooks tend to sync quickly meaning shared notebooks are up to date almost immediately provided there are no syncing issues.
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Support Rating
Mendeley
There are a lot of references that do a good job troubleshooting, although I am not sure there is a direct number to an actual person.
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Microsoft
Since it is part of Microsoft Office and used across the globe there are a lot of support options available. It's quickest to just do a google search which will have plenty of articles to help you since there are so many OneNote users but as an Office customer you also have access to Microsoft support and I have had good experiences with their support (probably because I'm with a large company who is a large customer to them).
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Alternatives Considered
Mendeley
Microsoft EndNote. Mendeley has better user interface and is able to store, sort and organize a large number of articles effectively. Also can import and extract information from citations from articles online without the entire full text pdf availability. Can be used and accessed from portable devices such as iPads and mobile phones as well.
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Microsoft
I tried using Evernote and it is an equally usable tool, however, I prefer the interface and capabilities of OneNote. OneNote seems much easier to use and understand. I think that may primarily be because OneNote is a Microsoft application and I am very used to using Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, etc. I also use OneNote to keep my grocery list. It does as good of a job as the grocery list applications out there, only I like the flexibility I have with OneNote and how I specifically do my shopping.
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Return on Investment
Mendeley
  • It is great that for instance, you download the paper you need once, and share it with your entire team.
  • You can present your annotation with the team!
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Microsoft
  • OneNote has become our organizational standard method of taking electronic notes (though some still prefer pen and paper.) It has been a zero cost outlay due to its freely available nature.
  • Its integration with other Microsoft Office products makes it easy to share notes and content between products, allowing for easy collaboration where needed.
  • OneNote's integration with OneDrive ensures that individual's notes are always safe and secure, taking away the tedious responsibility of backup from the user, and makes it happen seamlessly in the background.
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ScreenShots