An AI agent that does the legwork
A built-in AI agent can search your library, pull up sources, read your highlights, and add citations for you. It can also see what you're reading or browsing right now, so you don't have to explain.
Research, fully AI-wired.
Scholardo is your library, run by your AI agent — not an AI bolted onto a reference manager. It searches, cites, and drafts; you review and decide.
Works with the most capable agent CLIs
Claude Code and Codex are their vendors' official CLIs and need their own subscription or a compatible third-party model — Scholardo is not affiliated with them. Open-source CLIs like opencode and pi run on any protocol-compatible model provider.
Features
Ready out of the box.
Search by meaning, not just keywords
Find things by what they mean, not just the exact words — so searching for one idea surfaces the related passages too, across everything in your library.
Find new papers
Search the major research databases at once, drop duplicates, and put the most relevant results first — then save a free, legal full-text PDF to your library in one click.
Save pages as you browse
Browse the web without leaving the app, and save any page — or download a PDF — straight into your library with one click. Your agent can read whatever you're looking at, too.
Read every format
Open PDFs, e-books, Office files, web pages, images, audio, and video — all in one place. Search within a file, zoom to taste, and pick up right where you left off.
Highlight anything
Highlight and add notes on PDFs, e-books, and web pages with one set of tools. Rename or move a file and your marks stay put, and a sidebar lets you jump between them across chapters.
New work finds you
Follow journals, blogs, or news by topic and get a short AI summary of what's new dropped into your library on a schedule — instead of checking a dozen sites yourself.
Bring in your web highlights
Already highlight on the web with Hypothesis? Pull those notes into your library automatically, sorted by project — including ones you made before you added the document.
Citations, formatted for you
Choose from 100+ citation styles — APA, MLA, Chicago, and more. Import a reference and Scholardo builds the bibliography, ready to paste straight into your paper.
Reference details, filled in for you
Paste a link or ID and Scholardo fills in the journal, year, authors, and abstract — checking several sources and only filling blanks, so it never overwrites what you typed.
Your reference library
Import references from the tools you already use, and Scholardo tidies them up — splitting a big batch into one reference each and naming them consistently — so your library stays neat.
Files and references, matched
Scholardo checks that every document has a reference and every reference has its file, and links each reference to the right PDF — so nothing slips through the cracks.
Notes
Keep notes that link to each other, so you can follow a thread of ideas. Each note remembers the conversation it grew out of.
Slides
Turn your notes into a slide deck, pick a theme, present full-screen, and export to PDF — no separate slideshow app needed.
Long-form writing
Write a paper in chapters that stay organized on their own, then export to PDF, Word, or LaTeX with your references and formatting already in place.
AI help as you write
Select any text and a small toolbar pops up to rewrite it, proofread it, add a citation, or draft something new — always aware of what your piece is about.
Local-first, by architecture
Your data stays on your machine — not a setting, a default.Use any AI you like
Connect OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and others — even several accounts at once. Scholardo picks the right one for each task, and your keys stay safely on your own Mac.
Automatic backups
Scholardo backs up each project on a schedule and keeps it offline, so you can restore a clean copy whenever you need one.
Everything stays on your Mac
No account, no tracking. All your work lives on your own computer; the only time Scholardo goes online is to check your license — nothing else leaves your Mac.
Head to head
How it compares.
| Capability | Scholardo | Zotero | Mendeley | Obsidian | EndNote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native agent tools (MCP) | |||||
| Dense semantic search | |||||
| Lexical + semantic fusion | |||||
| Unified PDF/EPUB/web annotations | |||||
| In-app browser capture | |||||
| RSS feeds + AI digest | |||||
| Citation rendering (CSL 100+) | |||||
| Session branching & merge | |||||
| Menu-bar todo + AI summary | |||||
| Hypothesis annotation sync | |||||
| Presentation / slide output |
- Comparison reflects publicly documented features as of 2026. Other tools may partially achieve some of these via third-party plugins.
- Scholardo works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — on your own API key or CLI subscription, at cost. It sells no credits and takes no cut.
Pricing
Pick your plan
Early bird
Early-bird price through Sep 30, 2026.
Personal · Lifetime
$199.99
one-time
- Everything in Annual
- Up to 3 Macs
- macOS app updates
- Pay once, own forever
For labs & teams
Team
Custom
per seat
- All Personal features
- Volume seat licensing
- Centralized license management
- Priority support & onboarding
All prices in USD · Taxes may apply at checkout
FAQ
Common questions
Is my data sent anywhere?
Your research data, no. It stays in ~/.scholardo/ on your machine — no telemetry, no usage data, no cloud sync. The only calls we make on our own are the license check and, on this site, a version lookup; features you trigger yourself (an AI provider, an RSS feed, opening a page) reach out to whatever you pointed them at. The privacy policy lists all of it.
Do I need an AI API key to use it?
No. Core features — search, annotations, citations, browser capture — work locally without any key. A key is only needed for AI-powered features like selection rewriting or feed digests.
How is this different from Zotero?
Zotero is built for one researcher. Scholardo is built for two: you and your agent share the same library, the same annotations, and live reading context — natively, not through a plugin.
Does it work without internet?
Almost entirely. Local search, annotations, citations, and terminal sessions all work offline. Exceptions: fetching web content, cloud-model embedding / AI calls if configured, and the annual license refresh. If you switch to local open-source models via Ollama, embedding and AI generation run on your own machine — so semantic search, selection rewriting, and more also work fully offline, unlocking even more without a connection.
What's the license model?
Personal licenses come in two forms: Annual ($49.99/yr, cancel anytime) and Lifetime ($199.99, pay once). Download the app and unlock it with a license key. Team pricing is available on request.
How many Macs can one license activate?
Up to 3. A fourth activation is refused until a seat is freed — open Scholardo → About on the Mac you want to release and choose “Deactivate this device”. The seat frees up immediately, and that Mac can be activated again later.
Which agents and terminals are supported?
Any MCP-compatible agent — Claude Code, Codex CLI, and others. Any agent you can invoke from a shell session works.
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