Software Alternatives & Reviews

Paperpile VS Spotlight

Compare Paperpile VS Spotlight and see what are their differences

Paperpile logo Paperpile

Clean and simple and reference management for the web. Sync your PDFs to Google Drive and cite your papers in Google Docs.

Spotlight logo Spotlight

With Spotlight, you can find apps, documents, and other files on your Mac. And with Spotlight Suggestions, you can also get news, sports, movies, weather, and more.
  • Paperpile Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-29
  • Spotlight Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-01

Paperpile videos

PaperPile overview

More videos:

Spotlight videos

Spotlight - Movie Review

More videos:

  • Review - Spotlight Official Movie Review
  • Review - How Spotlight Dramatizes Good Journalism

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Paperpile and Spotlight)
Research Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100
Information Organization
100 100%
0% 0
App Launcher
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Paperpile and Spotlight. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Paperpile and Spotlight

Paperpile Reviews

10 Best Reference Management Software for Research
If you’re an academic researcher, Paperpile should be your go-to reference management software. It’s designed specifically for academics, making it the perfect choice for those who need to keep track of a large number of citations. Paperpile makes it easy to import references from a variety of sources, including PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science.

Spotlight Reviews

Looking For Spotlight for Windows 10? Here Are Five Alternatives
However, Spotlight comes inbuilt with MacOS and I do really miss it on my Windows laptop. But, the problem is Windows works with NTFS and indexing on Apple File System (APFS) is far better. So it’s not possible to get a perfect replacement for Spotlight. But that doesn’t stop me and in the scout to get Spotlight for Windows 10, I found out some solid alternatives apps.
Source: techwiser.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Paperpile should be more popular than Spotlight. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Paperpile mentions (10)

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Spotlight mentions (5)

  • Just bought my first Mac/Apple device (Macbook Air M2)
    I want to add another tip: learn to use Spotlight Search to launch apps, search for files or make google queries. To do so, type COMMAND + SPACEBAR. Down the road, once you get comfortable with Spotlight Search, you can replace it with alternative apps like Alfred or Raycast. Using the keyboard to launch apps and open files, from anywhere, takes macOS to another level of mind-meld. Highly recommend. Source: about 1 year ago
  • First time at a Mac/Google shop - teach me your ways
    Spotlight Search - The equivalent of searching in the start menu on a PC, but it actually works. Source: over 1 year ago
  • macOS using 7 cores and 19 gigs of ram to perform subtraction
    It seems they are using it as intended. Apple lists what op does as a supported usecase.. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/spotlight-mchlp1008/mac. Source: over 2 years ago
  • App disappeared on Mac
    Hi there, sorry to hear that. It's possible that the app has disappeared from the dock after updating to the latest stable version that was released today (v3.8.0) but should still be in the list of apps that you have installed or discoverable via Spotlight. If it's still not there, please let us know. You should be able to install it from the downloads page and it should retain your preferences, but create a... Source: almost 3 years ago
  • The right way to use Finder?
    One other thing I forgot to mention is Spotlight. As long as you know the name of file or folder (or other details) you can find it quickly with Spotlight. Just click the magnifying glass in the menu bar, or press CMD + Space. Source: almost 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Paperpile and Spotlight, you can also consider the following products

Mendeley - Easily organize your papers, read & annotate your PDFs, collaborate in private or open groups, and securely access your research from everywhere.

Raycast - Fastest way to control Jira, GitHub and other web apps

Zotero - Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share research.

Alfred - Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.

Qiqqa - Qiqqa is a free research and reference management software. It can be used in many organizational projects from the academic to the personal to the business endeavor. Read more about Qiqqa.

eesel - The new tab for work