Altarx

A home for scientific papers

Altarx is a bibliography manager for scientists, with a focus on minimalism without sacrificing on the features that matter.

Image showing Altarx open on iPhone, iPad and MacBook

Available on iOS, iPadOS and macOS!

You can download Altarx from this website for your iPhone, iPad or MacBook. All your devices will stay synchronized through iCloud, both your notes and any PDF you annotate.

Search for papers

You can search for papers directly from Altarx thanks to its embedded ArXiv and ADS search engines.

Stay organised and take notes

With Altarx, you can organize your papers into lists. You can choose a name and an icon for each of them. This way you stay organised and don’t forget a thing!

And… It’s open-source!

Altarx is open-source, and it will stay this way forever. This means you can read its code to verify that it doesn’t collect any of your data, as attested by its Privacy Policy.

You can reach me at:

Image showing Altarx on iPad open on a paper list with a paper selected showing its abstract and notes taken by a user

FAQ

The app isn’t in sync on my devices

iCloud is a finicky technology, make sure to give it a little time and a few restarts of the app. If it’s still not working, make sure you have enabled iCloud sharing in the settings of all your devices and have allowed Altarx to use iCloud Drive.

Altarx looks cool, but can I import my library from app X?

At the time of writing, not yet! But the feature is planned and it will start with Zotero. When the time comes, you’ll see an import option in Altarx’s menu.

Can I export my Altarx lists to a BibTeX file?

No, not yet, but it’s also planned! Look for it in the next updates.

Will you add an integration to search with X search engine?

It depends on whether or not this search engine has an API that plays nice with 3rd party apps. Some websites not put anti-bots measures in place on every requests sent their way. It’s mainly to avoid scraping from AI companies, but it also interferes with apps like Altarx. What I’d love to implement is a plugin system for users to add any search engine they’d like, but that will take time.

Was generative AI used to make this app?

No. And nor do I intend to use it, or accept its usage in PRs submitted to Altarx’s repository.