Deep-Research-skills vs llm-for-zotero
The two are close in size: 2.1k stars for Deep-Research-skills, 2.9k for llm-for-zotero. Over the days we have tracked them Deep-Research-skills moved +107% and llm-for-zotero +56.2%, so Deep-Research-skills is growing faster right now.
llm-for-zotero leads on context depth and customization and privacy and model freedom. Deep-Research-skills does not take any axis by a clear margin.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
Provides a structured two-phase (outline then deep investigation) human-in-the-loop research workflow packaged specifically as skills for Claude Code / OpenCode / Codex, including parallel web research modules and report generation.
- Stars
- 2.1k
- Tracked growth
- +107%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 13d ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- MIT
- Cost to run
- Depends on model provider
Deep Zotero-native integration that provides grounded, citation-linked paper chat and library-wide agent actions (reads, writes, tagging, notes) not offered by generic agents.
- Stars
- 2.9k
- Tracked growth
- +56.2%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 1d ago
- Language
- TypeScript
- License
- AGPL-3.0
- Cost to run
- Your API key or local models
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | Deep-Research-skills | llm-for-zotero |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Web-only | ●●●●● Whole-library access |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Human-in-the-loop | ●●●●● Citation gating & confirmations |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Config file options | ●●●●● Custom skills & settings |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● Cloud APIs | ●●●●● Local model support |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Specific providers | ●●●●● Bring-your-own model/key |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● Manual install steps | ●●●●● Easy install + API key |
Which one to pick
Pick Deep-Research-skills if…
Claude/OpenCode/Codex integration — choose this when you run those agent clients and want an extensible, human-in-the-loop two-phase workflow (outline + deep web research) that outputs organized markdown reports.
Pick llm-for-zotero if…
Zotero-native — pick this when you want a research assistant tightly integrated with your local Zotero library for grounded citations, file-based notes, and library-wide agent workflows.
- Context depth: Whole-library access (5/5 against 1/5)
- Customization: Custom skills & settings (5/5 against 3/5)
- Privacy: Local model support (5/5 against 3/5)
- Model freedom: Bring-your-own model/key (5/5 against 3/5)
What people want from each one
yilewang/llm-for-zotero
Questions people ask
Is Deep-Research-skills better than llm-for-zotero?
llm-for-zotero leads on context depth and customization and privacy and model freedom. Deep-Research-skills does not take any axis by a clear margin. Deep-Research-skills is worth picking when claude/OpenCode/Codex integration — choose this when you run those agent clients and want an extensible, human-in-the-loop two-phase workflow (outline + deep web research) that outputs organized markdown reports.
Which of Deep-Research-skills and llm-for-zotero keeps my code private?
Deep-Research-skills: Cloud APIs (3/5). llm-for-zotero: Local model support (5/5).
What does each one cost to run?
Deep-Research-skills: Depends on model provider. llm-for-zotero: Your API key or local models.
Full profiles: Weizhena/Deep-Research-skills and yilewang/llm-for-zotero. Everything else in Research agents.