What it is
Zotero MCP, by Steven Yu (54yyyu on GitHub), connects a Zotero research library to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients. It is the most-starred Zotero MCP project, with about 5,500 GitHub stars, and version 0.15.1 shipped on PyPI on 16 October 2026. It is listed in the official MCP registry as io.github.54yyyu/zotero-mcp.
The default profile exposes 41 tools, 53 with every optional group switched on. They cover search by title, author, tag, full text or meaning (semantic search with local, OpenAI, Gemini or Ollama embeddings), reading metadata, BibTeX and PDF page ranges, placing highlights and notes on PDFs, and adding papers by DOI, URL, ISBN or BibTeX. Optional groups add duplicate merging, Scite citation tallies, OpenAlex discovery and RSS feeds.
The same package, zotero-mcp-server, also ships a zotero-cli with an agent skill for coding agents that have a shell, and a chat plugin that runs inside Zotero. In local mode it reads straight from Zotero's database; writes go through Zotero 10's local API or the Zotero web API.
Install
uv tool install zotero-mcp-server && zotero-mcp setupOur review
Zotero MCP turns a curated research library into something an assistant can search by meaning, read page by page and annotate in place, with citations that point back to the PDF. General web search cannot do that, because it does not know which papers you trust. Local mode reads straight from Zotero's zotero.sqlite file and needs no credentials, so a first query is possible within minutes of installing.
The project is unusually honest about its weight. Its README measures the default profile of 41 tools at 16,815 tokens on every request, and all 53 tools at 20,942, against 98 tokens for the agent-skill route until it fires. Toolsets help: ZOTERO_MCP_TOOLSETS=none cuts the server to core tools, and a disabled tool is genuinely absent rather than hidden. In clients with a shell, the zotero-cli skill does the same work for a fraction of the context.
Writes deserve more caution than reads. On Zotero 10 a one-off authorize-local step lets the model add items, edit metadata, move items between collections, delete annotations permanently and, with the duplicates group on, merge items behind a plan-then-confirm step. On older Zotero, writes go through the web API with a key. The ChatGPT route is the weakest point: zotero-mcp serve has no authentication, so the docs' ngrok recipe turns the tunnel URL into a bearer token, and an open issue (#616) asks for a proper auth option.
It is a community project funded by GitHub Sponsors, not something the Zotero team ships, and that cuts both ways. Releases arrive weekly (0.14.1 on 8 October, then 0.15.0 and 0.15.1 a day apart), and the 63 open issues and pull requests include real edge cases such as group-library uploads landing in the personal WebDAV store. Zotero's web API asks clients to keep to four concurrent requests and honour Backoff headers, a rule that matters far more to a batch-happy agent than to a person clicking.
Where it earns its place
A PhD student with about 1,800 papers in Zotero 10, working in Claude Desktop
Find what my library says about a method and cite the exact page
Semantic search with the free local all-MiniLM-L6-v2 model finds papers by meaning, zotero_read_pdf_pages pulls the relevant pages and zotero_create_annotation highlights the passage. Nothing to pay beyond the model subscription, but the default tool list adds about 17k tokens to every turn.
A research engineer drafting a related-work section in LaTeX with Claude Code
Pull BibTeX and quotes for 30 papers without leaving the editor
Run zotero-mcp install-skill instead of adding the MCP server: the skill costs 98 tokens until used and drives zotero-cli for metadata and BibTeX. Reads are local, so nothing leaves the machine except what the agent sends to its model.
A lab manager looking after a shared group library for eight researchers
Clean up duplicates and file new papers into the right collections
Enable the duplicates group and have the agent run zotero_merge_duplicates as a dry run before confirming. Web API writes need a key with group write access, and Zotero asks for no more than four concurrent requests; an export before the first merge is cheap insurance.
Before you commit
- Setup
- uv tool install zotero-mcp-server, tick 'Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero' in Zotero 7 or later, then zotero-mcp setup configures Claude Desktop; zotero-mcp install-skill covers Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. Semantic search needs the [semantic] extra and an index built with zotero-mcp update-db.
- Integrations
- 41 tools by default and 53 with every group on: search, metadata, full text, PDF pages and outlines, annotations and notes, adding by DOI, URL, ISBN or BibTeX, and collections, plus opt-in Scite, OpenAlex, feeds, relations and duplicates. Read and write tools sit together in the core set.
- Data and privacy
- Local mode reads zotero.sqlite directly; text leaves the machine only to your model provider and, if chosen, OpenAI or Gemini embeddings. Web API mode needs a Zotero API key and library ID. DOI and URL imports fetch metadata and PDFs from outside sources, and the HTTP transport has no authentication. No security advisories are published.
- Cost at scale
- The software is free. Zotero file sync costs $20 a year for 2 GB, $60 for 6 GB or $120 for unlimited if attachments live in Zotero storage. The bigger cost is context: 16,815 tokens of tool definitions per request in the default profile, paid on every turn unless the client caches them.
- Limits
- Zotero's web API throttles with Backoff headers and 429 responses and asks for at most four concurrent requests; the local API has no rate limit. Open issues include Windows CLI detection in the in-Zotero plugin and group-library attachments uploading to the personal WebDAV store.
What's good
- Searches your own library by meaning, with free local embeddings by default
- Page-level PDF reading, with highlights placed on exact passages
- Local read-only mode needs no API key
- Toolsets and a 98-token CLI skill keep context cost down
What's not
- Default 41 tools cost 16,815 tokens per request
- Write tools can delete annotations and merge items
- HTTP mode for ChatGPT has no authentication
- Single-maintainer project, not from Zotero
Best for
Academics and students who keep their papers in Zotero and want an assistant to search, read and annotate them.
Alternatives
Zotero MCP: common questions
- Is Zotero MCP worth it?
- For anyone whose reading lives in Zotero this is the server to run, though its 17,000-token tool list makes the CLI skill the smarter route in coding agents. We rate it 4.2 out of 5.
- How much does Zotero MCP cost?
- Free and open source (MIT for the server and CLI; the in-Zotero chat plugin is AGPL-3.0). Hosted embedding providers are billed by them.
- What are the downsides of Zotero MCP?
- Default 41 tools cost 16,815 tokens per request; write tools can delete annotations and merge items; hTTP mode for ChatGPT has no authentication; single-maintainer project, not from Zotero.
- Who is Zotero MCP best for?
- Academics and students who keep their papers in Zotero and want an assistant to search, read and annotate them.
- How much does Zotero MCP cost for a team or in production?
- The software is free. Zotero file sync costs $20 a year for 2 GB, $60 for 6 GB or $120 for unlimited if attachments live in Zotero storage. The bigger cost is context: 16,815 tokens of tool definitions per request in the default profile, paid on every turn unless the client caches them.
- Is Zotero MCP safe for company data?
- Local mode reads zotero.sqlite directly; text leaves the machine only to your model provider and, if chosen, OpenAI or Gemini embeddings. Web API mode needs a Zotero API key and library ID. DOI and URL imports fetch metadata and PDFs from outside sources, and the HTTP transport has no authentication. No security advisories are published.
- What are the best Zotero MCP alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Notion MCP and Memory (reference server).
Answers checked Oct 22, 2026.
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