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Qiqqa

Free plan Open source AndroidSelf-hostedWebWindows

What Qiqqa is

Qiqqa is a research and reference manager for organizing PDFs, reviewing papers, and creating bibliographies. Its library features include document previews, duplicate detection, automatic PDF import, OCR, full-text search, and support for multiple libraries. It can import references from Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote, JabRef, and other BibTeX-exporting programs. Expedition groups a library into themes, while tools for citations, authors, keywords, and related documents can help surface research. The PDF viewer supports highlights, annotations, and free-form drawing; reports can collect abstracts, notes, and marked-up material. Qiqqa InCite supports citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word using community-contributed styles, and can suggest library papers while writing. Users can share libraries with other Qiqqa users, assign roles, and collaborate on annotations and metadata. A free Android companion app supports offline viewing, annotation, and highlighting. The open-source repository describes Qiqqa as a Windows tool and says commercial Web Library cloud sync was discontinued in 2021. Listed plans include Premium at $6.67 a month and Premium+ at $41.67 a month.

Who it suits

Qiqqa may suit researchers who need PDF search, annotation, reference imports, and bibliography tools. Its sharing and role controls may also suit teams using a common library; the maker describes Premium+ intranet syncing for organizations with data privacy restrictions.

What it does well

Searches PDFs using OCR and full-text indexing.
Imports BibTeX references from several reference managers.
Supports Word citations and bibliographies.
Free Android companion app works offline.

What to know first

Commercial Web Library cloud sync was discontinued in 2021.
The open-source repository describes Qiqqa as a Windows tool.
Premium+ is listed at $41.67 a month.

Limits

The Free plan includes 2GB online storage and is ad supported. Premium includes 10GB storage, while Premium+ includes 50GB online storage.

Plans

Plan	Billed and limits	Price
Free	$ 0 /month · super charged PDF management · Annotation Reports · Expedition · ad supported · 2GB free online storage	Free
Premium+	$ 41.67* /month · Premium features · private intranet syncing · MS Word-to-PDF conversion · business-focused · 50GB free online storage	$41.67 a month
Premium	$ 6.67* /month; educational $ 3.33* /month · no adverts · annotation report filtering · password-protected PDFs · more than 10 libraries · private intranet read-only syncing · 10GB free storage	$6.67 a month

As jimmejardine.github.io lists them, read 15 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.

Getting started

Visit the Qiqqa website.
Choose the Free, Premium, or Premium+ plan.
Install the Windows setup executable from the distribution route described by the repository.
Import PDFs or references from a BibTeX-exporting program.
Use the free Android companion app for offline document viewing and annotation.

Verdict

Qiqqa brings PDF organization, annotation, reference management, and Word bibliography support together. Check platform and sync requirements, particularly given the discontinued commercial cloud sync.

Questions

Is Qiqqa free?

Yes. Its Free plan includes 2GB online storage and is ad supported. Paid plans include Premium at $6.67 a month and Premium+ at $41.67 a month.

Which platforms does Qiqqa support?

The listed platforms are Android, self-hosted, web, and Windows. The open-source repository describes a Windows tool, and the maker describes a free Android companion app.

Can Qiqqa work with Microsoft Word?

Yes. Qiqqa InCite supports citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word using community-contributed citation styles.

Can teams collaborate in Qiqqa?

Users can share libraries with other Qiqqa users, assign admin, contributor, and viewer roles, and collaborate on annotations and metadata.

Is Qiqqa open source?

Yes. Qiqqa has an open-source repository.

What support does Qiqqa offer?

The maker lists a support forum, manual, screencasts, and direct contact by email.

Facts from Qiqqa's own pages

Android: The maker describes a free Android companion app for viewing, annotating, and highlighting documents offline. · jimmejardine.github.io, 7 Oct 2026
Android app: The Android companion is free, works offline and can view, annotate and edit highlights, although the manual says Android cannot add highlights. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
Annotation reports: Custom reports can combine abstracts, notes, annotations, highlights, inks and OCR text from selected documents. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Brainstorming: Brainstorming provides mind maps whose nodes can contain files, images, text, documents and web links. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Citation workflow: InCite inserts citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word using thousands of community citation styles without a word-processor plug-in. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Cloud discontinuation: The open-source README says Web Library cloud synchronization was removed and commercial cloud libraries were discontinued in 2021. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
Collaboration: Group libraries support administrator, contributor and viewer roles, shared metadata, discussion walls and private download links. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Company incorporation: Quantisle Limited was incorporated in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2009. · find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk, 15 Oct 2026
Company size: A UK company profile lists Quantisle with one employee in its 2026 accounts and a London registered office. · companiesintheuk.co.uk, 15 Oct 2026
Developer build: Build instructions require Windows 10, .NET tooling, Visual Studio 2019, Git, Node/npm, submodules and a Release setup build. · raw.githubusercontent.com, 15 Oct 2026
Discovery: Expedition analyzes a library into themes and helps users identify influential or specific papers. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Documentation: The project README says user documentation still needs substantial work and directs support questions to GitHub issues. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
Duplicate detection: Qiqqa alerts users when the same paper appears more than once in a library. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Integrated browser: Its research browser can search multiple academic engines, import PDFs and convert web pages to PDF. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Integrations: Import is supported from Mendeley, Zotero, EndNote, JabRef and other BibTeX exporters, with Word, BibTeX and LaTeX export options. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: AlternativeTo: AlternativeTo comments repeatedly mention stagnating development, glitches, weak support and non-Windows compatibility. · alternativeto.net, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: data recovery: A GitHub issue records a user reporting weeks of downtime, crashes and inability to access or synchronize a Web Library. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: G2 support and loss: A G2 reviewer reported a paid renewal followed by an empty account, loss of more than 3,000 annotated PDFs and no effective support response. · g2.com, 15 Oct 2026
Limit: release stability: The README warns that v82 prereleases were lightly tested and could contain bugs. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
Local network option: The maker describes Premium+ as suitable for organizations with data privacy restrictions because it can keep documents within a corporate intranet. · jimmejardine.github.io, 7 Oct 2026
Metadata: Qiqqa can infer metadata from document text and use a BibTeX sniffer to search Google Scholar for matching records. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
OCR: Built-in OCR makes image-based PDFs searchable and supports extracted abstracts and keywords. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026
Open-source licence: The public repository identifies Qiqqa as GPL-3.0 software. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
PDF annotation: The viewer supports highlights, notes, tags, ratings, follow-up dates and freehand drawing. · jimmejardine.github.io, 15 Oct 2026

Where Qiqqa stands on Freedom251

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