Citations vs Citer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Citations
Effortlessly create website citations with a clean, intuitive interface. This tool offers quick formatting without requiring an internet connection, prioritizing user privacy and simplicity for academic or professional work.
- Simple and easy-to-use interface
- Quick website citation formatting
- Offline functionality
- Designed for Apple platforms
- Privacy-focused
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Citations’ user interface was designed to be simple and easy to use. Just pick a format from the sidebar, fill out the fields, and tap one button to format the website citation properly. The entire process is seamless and quick, with zero latency or load times. It’s designed beautifully for Apple platforms following Apple Human Interface Guidelines and has support for the latest Apple technologies. Citations runs without an internet connection, too. This means you can cite your sources wherever you may be without worrying about page load times. It works, always. And the best part: Citations is free forever, with no ads, trackers, analytics, or paywalls. It’s made to help you do your best work, and that’s it. It prioritizes simplicity, beauty, and versatility. It’s privacy-conscious in every way — your citations are yours and yours only. Citations isn’t a reference manager, it’s purely a citation creator that generates citations quickly, so its user interface feels un-cluttered and intuitive. It puts privacy and simplicity above all else. Citations is made by an independent developer, with no VC backing, tip jars, or creepy upsells. Beautiful, simple, powerful, and made to help students — that’s Citations. Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro.
Citer
Write academic papers in sections on the go, manage references, and auto-generate citations and reference lists. Supports APA and MLA formats, with PDF and RTF export options.
- Section-based paper writing
- Online reference search and import
- Auto-generated citations and reference lists
- APA and MLA format support
- PDF and RTF export
- Reference library for sharing
- Image insertion
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Citer is a scholarly academic writing app for students & professionals that lets you write an academic paper in sections on the go with ease. A concise & precise reference management system that lets you search & add references and auto-generates citations & reference lists. LOOSE LEAF PAPER - Write one section at a time with each section as big and small as you like e.g. title page, abstract, author note, heading levels, etc. - Figure section lets you add an image such as a chart, graph, photo, drawing, or other illustration itself from the photo library. - You can also rearrange sections simply by drag & drop so that e.g. section 4 becomes section 1. SEARCH REFERENCE & ADD - Search for references online & add it to a paper and it auto-generates the reference entries and citations for you. CONCISE REFERENCE & PRECISE CITATION MACHINE - A concise reference entry which includes the four elements of author, date, title and source and answers the elemental question about a work of Who, When, What & Where. - Contributor element appears only where applicable e.g. for edited book chapters & TV Episode. - You can add a reference manually too and tweak it further and it auto-generates precise citation for you in a specific citation style. AUTOMATIC IN-TEXT CITATION - Auto-generates parenthetical and narrative in-text citation of single or multiple works with further choice of first or subsequent mention. - For APA, you can cite not just pages, but paragraphs, sections, tables, chapters, section names, slide numbers, etc. REFERENCE LIBRARY - A common reference library that lets you share references across papers and automatically adds a reference list section to your paper. REFERENCE TYPES - Comprehensive coverage of all reference types which includes textual works such as periodicals, books, edited book chapters, reports, conference session & presentations, and dissertations & theses. - Data sets, software, and tests. - Audiovisuals such as films or videos, tv series, tv episode and webinar; audio works such as songs and podcast episodes; visual works such as infographic, map and photo. - Online media such as social media and web pages. PDF MAKER - Automatically removes widow & orphan lines and generates PDF for you with reference list in a specific paper format. POWERFUL PAPER FORMATTING - Powerful paper formatting features such as paragraph indentation & alignment, heading levels, cases, superscript, etc. along with basic formatting features such as style, bullet, etc. - A choice of all of Apple's system fonts to choose from, e.g. Arial, Times New Roman, etc. EXPORT TO RTF - Export paper to RTF which retains all the formatting and includes the reference list which you can import & edit in Microsoft Word or Apple Pages app. - Export to MS DOC format only on the Mac. PAPER FORMAT - Citer covers APA & MLA format right now and other paper formats will be added soon. AUTOMATIC iCLOUD SYNC & STORE - Automatically stores all your papers and app data safely on iCloud and syncs across all your devices. ADAPTIVE SPLIT-VIEW USER INTERFACE - Citer is a universal app available on iOS, iPadOS & macOS and adapts its split-view design on the fly so that user gets best & native experience on that platform. Monthly & yearly subscription with free trial period of 3 days for monthly and 7 days for yearly with full access to all features of the app. Requires an active subscription without which you can only read & not edit. Citer's powerful loose-Leaf paper makes writing on the go on a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad or MacBook a breeze. Whether you are a student writing an essay or a professional writing a manuscript for publication, Citer is the app for writing an academic paper on the go with ease and its concise & precise reference management system will help you understand the work better, provide appropriate credit and avoid plagiarism. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Citations at 60% against Citer's 0%. Citations also leads on rating (4.4 vs 1.0) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). Citer's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 6 weeks) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Citer sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Citations asks for nothing beyond the download.
Citations holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Citations has 16 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of Citations's written reviews are positive against 0% of Citer's.
Citations ships an update every 6 weeks, Citer every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Citations | Citer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (16 ratings) — better | 1.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 16 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Eshan Marneedi | Betyl Pty Ltd |
Customer experience
Citations
Citer
In-app purchases
Citations
No in-app purchases
Citer
- Monthly Subscription3 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription7 Days trial$24.991 Year









