Is Aurelius or Mendeley better?

Neither clearly leads. Aurelius starts at $49/month and Mendeley at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Aurelius or Mendeley?

Mendeley has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $49/month for Aurelius and Free for Mendeley.

Does Aurelius or Mendeley run on more platforms?

Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.

Can I use Mendeley for free?

Yes. Mendeley has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Aurelius starts at $49/month.

What is Aurelius best used for?

Aurelius is most often used for a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later, a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats, a consultancy running discovery for multiple clients that needs tagged evidence kept separate per client but searchable internally, a team preparing a repeat study who need to know what was already learned about the same problem two years ago before they recruit anyone. Of those, a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later and a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats are not what Mendeley is typically brought in for.

What can Aurelius do that Mendeley cannot?

Aurelius covers Research repository, Analysis board, Tagging, Insights and recommendations.

Research · head to head

Aurelius vs Mendeley

Aurelius

Research

UX research repository for tagging notes, building insights and finding them again years later

From: $49/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

Mendeley

Research

The free all-in-one reference manager

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Mendeley has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Aurelius aurelius does not recruit participants or run unmoderated studies, so it is always a second tool alongside a testing or recruitment platform and never the whole research budget.; Mendeley free tier limited to 5 Reading Assistant questions per month and 2GB storage
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Aurelius and Mendeley actually diverge.

Attributes where Aurelius and Mendeley differ
Attribute	Aurelius	Mendeley
Starting price	$49/month	Free
Pricing model	Flat monthly fee, unlimited users	freemium
Free tier	No	Yes

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Research).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Aurelius

Research repository
Analysis board
Tagging
Insights and recommendations
Transcription
AI assist
Automatic report builder
Universal search

Only in Mendeley

Nothing recorded that Aurelius does not also cover.

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Aurelius

A research team of three whose findings currently live in individual Miro boards and Google Docs that nobody outside the team can find six months laternot Mendeley
A product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seatsnot Mendeley
A consultancy running discovery for multiple clients that needs tagged evidence kept separate per client but searchable internallynot Mendeley
A team preparing a repeat study who need to know what was already learned about the same problem two years ago before they recruit anyonenot Mendeley

Mendeley

Storing and organizing large research librariesnot Aurelius
Searching and querying PDFs in librarynot Aurelius
Uncovering patterns and connections across referencesnot Aurelius
Comparing experimental data across multiple studiesnot Aurelius

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Aurelius

Aurelius does not recruit participants or run unmoderated studies, so it is always a second tool alongside a testing or recruitment platform and never the whole research budget.
Integrations are thin, with Zapier, Jira and Slack rather than direct connections to the call recording and testing tools most teams already run, so getting material in often means manual upload.
The tag vocabulary is only as good as the discipline applied to it, and repositories where several researchers invent overlapping tags become unsearchable within a year with no built-in governance to prevent it.
Unlimited users is genuinely unlimited but permissions are basic below Enterprise, so a team that needs client-safe or stakeholder-only views has to buy the quoted tier for something that reads as a table-stakes control.
It is a small independent vendor competing with much better funded repositories, which is a real procurement risk for an organisation storing years of research in it, and enterprise assurance material such as penetration test reports sits behind the top tier.

Mendeley

Free tier limited to 5 Reading Assistant questions per month and 2GB storage
Annual billing required to receive one free month equivalent discount
Storage limits restricted on Plus (5GB) and Pro (10GB) tiers

Pricing, plan by plan

Aurelius

$49/month

Professional$49/month
- Unlimited users
- Unlimited projects and storage
- Notes, tags and documents
Premium$199/month
- Everything in Professional
- Recommendations
- Universal search across projects
Enterprise$undefined/year
- Everything in Premium
- SSO with SAML 2.0
- IP allowlisting

Mendeley

Free

FreeFree
- 2GB storage
- 5 Reading Assistant questions per month
Plus$4.99/month
- Unlimited Reading Assistant
- 5GB storage
- $55/year annual billing
Pro$9.99/month
- Unlimited Reading Assistant
- Compare Experiments
- Ask My Library
Max$14.99/month
- Unlimited Reading Assistant
- Compare Experiments
- Ask My Library

Which should you pick?

Choose Aurelius if

You need research repository.
You also want analysis board.

Aurelius review

Choose Mendeley if

You want to start without paying.

Mendeley review

Questions people ask

Is Aurelius or Mendeley better?: Neither clearly leads. Aurelius starts at $49/month and Mendeley at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Aurelius or Mendeley?: Mendeley has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $49/month for Aurelius and Free for Mendeley.
Does Aurelius or Mendeley run on more platforms?: Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Mendeley for free?: Yes. Mendeley has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Aurelius starts at $49/month.
What is Aurelius best used for?: Aurelius is most often used for a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later, a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats, a consultancy running discovery for multiple clients that needs tagged evidence kept separate per client but searchable internally, a team preparing a repeat study who need to know what was already learned about the same problem two years ago before they recruit anyone. Of those, a research team of three whose findings currently live in individual miro boards and google docs that nobody outside the team can find six months later and a product organisation that wants every designer and product manager to search past research without paying forty repository seats are not what Mendeley is typically brought in for.
What can Aurelius do that Mendeley cannot?: Aurelius covers Research repository, Analysis board, Tagging, Insights and recommendations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Aurelius: Does the price really include unlimited users?

Yes. Professional at 49 US dollars a month and Premium at 199, both billed yearly, both with unlimited users, projects and storage.

Mendeley: How much does Mendeley Premium cost?

Mendeley Plus costs $4.99 per month or $55 per year. Pro tier costs $9.99 per month or $110 per year. Max tier costs $14.99 per month or $165 per year. All annual plans include one free month of service.

Source

Aurelius: Can I run usability tests in it?

No. Aurelius stores and analyses research; it does not recruit participants or host sessions. Pair it with a testing tool.

Mendeley: Is there a free version of Mendeley?

Yes, Mendeley offers a free tier with 2GB of storage and 5 Reading Assistant questions per month. No credit card is required for the free plan.

Source

Aurelius: What is the difference between Professional and Premium?

Premium adds universal cross-project search, collections, recommendations and Zapier. If your value comes from finding old research, Premium is the tier that delivers it.

Mendeley: What storage do different Mendeley plans include?

The free tier includes 2GB storage. Plus tier provides 5GB storage. Pro tier includes 10GB storage. Max tier offers unlimited storage across all your research libraries.

Source

Aurelius: Is there single sign-on?

Only on Enterprise, along with IP allowlisting, Jira and advanced permissions. Everything below is quoted separately.

Aurelius vs Mendeley

Aurelius

Mendeley

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Aurelius

Only in Mendeley

What people use each for

Aurelius

Mendeley

Where each one falls short

Aurelius

Mendeley

Pricing, plan by plan

Aurelius

Mendeley

Which should you pick?

Choose Aurelius if

Choose Mendeley if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Aurelius

More on Mendeley

Keep looking

Other head to heads