Scholar Sidekick resolves DOIs, PMIDs, ISBNs & arXiv IDs into citations (APA, Vancouver, IEEE, 10,000+ CSL styles), verifies citations to catch AI fabrication, and checks retraction & open access. Free web, REST API, Chrome extension, MCP server.
This page is designed to help you find out whether Scholar Sidekick is good and if it is the right choice for you.
Scholar Sidekick is a fast, deterministic citation resolver, formatter, exporter, and verifier - built for researchers, clinicians, students, librarians, and AI agents.
Paste any scholarly identifier - DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, ISSN, arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, or a WHO IRIS URL - and it fetches the record from Crossref, PubMed, arXiv, Open Library, ADS, or DataCite, normalizes the metadata, and renders a citation in your chosen style.
Five built-in styles (Vancouver, AMA, APA, IEEE, CSE) plus the full 10,000+ style CSL catalogue - dependent styles auto-resolve to their parent.
Export to plain text, HTML, Markdown, RIS, BibTeX, CSL-JSON, EndNote XML, CSV, or streaming NDJSON - compatible with Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and JabRef.
Trust and integrity tools, built for the age of AI-generated text: - Citation verifier: cross-checks a claimed title/author/year against the paper at its DOI/PMID/arXiv ID, catching the dominant fabrication pattern (a real identifier paired with an invented title) that simply resolving the link misses. - Bibliography auditor: runs the verifier plus retraction and open-access checks across a whole reference list at once. - Retraction checker: Crossref + Retraction Watch (status, reason, date). - Open-access checker: Unpaywall lookup for the best free legal copy.
A documented REST API (OpenAPI spec, deterministic headers) backs it all, plus Chrome, Firefox, and Edge extensions, an Obsidian plugin, and an open-source MCP server so AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT can resolve, format, export, and verify citations natively.
Engineered as reliable infrastructure: allowlisted outbound fetches, two-tier caching, SSRF protection, 99% test coverage in CI.
Use cases: format a DOI while drafting; bulk-export a PubMed list to RIS for Zotero; verify an AI-drafted bibliography before submission; screen a reference list for retractions; let an agent cite scholarly work via MCP.
Free on the web; paid API tiers for higher volume.
Listed in
Developer API
OpenAPI spec
MCP Server
For AI agent access
DOI resolver
Crossref-backed
Chrome extension
One-click citation capture
Citation styles
10,000+ CSL styles
Builtin styles
Vancouver, APA, AMA, IEEE, CSE
Identifier types
DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, ISSN, arXiv, ADS, IRIS
Export formats
RIS, BibTeX, CSL-JSON, EndNote XML, CSV, HTML, Markdown
Streaming
NDJSON batch endpoint
Reference managers
Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, Papers, JabRef, Citavi
Rate limits
Tiered (free, pro, ultra, mega)
Caching
Two-tier (memory + persistent KV)
Authentication
API key
Pricing
Freemium
No signup
Free web tools, no account required
Open source
MCP server
VS Code Extension
Built for people who write citation-bearing documents in VS Code
Obsidian Integration
Paste a DOI, PMID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, or PMCID into a note and replace it with a formatted citation. No reference manager required.
Zotero Integration
Verify .bib/.ris at the import boundary
Developer Tools
https://scholar-sidekick.com/docs & https://scholar-sidekick.com/openapi/openapi.yml
Scholar Sidekick is identifier-first. Most citation tools want you to paste a URL or hand-fill a form; Scholar Sidekick takes a DOI, PubMed ID, PMCID, ISBN, ISSN, arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, or WHO IRIS URL and resolves it directly against authoritative sources (Crossref, PubMed, arXiv, Open Library, ADS).
It's also one of the only citation tools to combine free web tools, a documented REST API, a Chrome extension, and an open-source MCP server in one product - letting humans, scripts, and AI agents (like Claude) all pull citations from the same engine. Outputs are deterministic, with provenance headers showing exactly which style was used, whether it was cached, and whether any fallback occurred.
Scholar Sidekick started from a simple frustration: existing citation generators are either slow, ad-heavy, or limited to pasting article URLs and hoping the metadata is correct. None of them handled scholarly identifiers (DOI, PMID, arXiv) cleanly, and none exposed a modern API or could be called by an AI agent.
So Scholar Sidekick was built around three principles: identifier-first input, deterministic output, and open access. Free for humans on the web, free for AI agents via an open-source MCP server, and a modest paid tier for developers who need higher API volume. The goal isn't to be a flashy citation tool - it's to be the boring, reliable piece of citation infrastructure that just works.
We have collected here some useful links to help you find out if Scholar Sidekick is good.
Check the traffic stats of Scholar Sidekick on SimilarWeb. The key metrics to look for are: monthly visits, average visit duration, pages per visit, and traffic by country. Moreoever, check the traffic sources. For example "Direct" traffic is a good sign.
Check the "Domain Rating" of Scholar Sidekick on Ahrefs. The domain rating is a measure of the strength of a website's backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. It shows the strength of Scholar Sidekick's backlink profile compared to the other websites. In most cases a domain rating of 60+ is considered good and 70+ is considered very good.
Check the "Domain Authority" of Scholar Sidekick on MOZ. A website's domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It is based on a 100-point logarithmic scale, with higher scores corresponding to a greater likelihood of ranking. This is another useful metric to check if a website is good.
The latest comments about Scholar Sidekick on Reddit. This can help you find out how popualr the product is and what people think about it.
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Is Scholar Sidekick good? This is an informative page that will help you find out. Moreover, you can review and discuss Scholar Sidekick here. The primary details have been verified within the last quarter. So they could be considered up to date. If you think we are missing something, please use the means on this page to comment or suggest changes. All reviews and comments are highly encouranged and appreciated as they help everyone in the community to make an informed choice. Please always be kind and objective when evaluating a product and sharing your opinion.
