I recently moved to Bookends from Endnote because I'd had a look at the pathetic upgrade they are offering for another almost 100 $ (half a year after the Windows version). The new version of Bookends is a sweet breeze of fresh air.
After testing Bookends 9.0.6. for a while (I bought it on the first day), I downloaded Bookends 9.0.7 today and imported my Endnote xml file. Everything, including the attachments were there! I
lost no data. Fields will need some readjustment (no problem with global change features) and I will have to replace some special record types I had created in Endnote. A small price to pay for what I'm getting.
The ability to search attached pdf files via spotlight from within Bookends (Bookends does not include the ability to search its database via spotlight from the spotlight end, but, to be honest, that's not an indispensable feature);
Hit list, Smart groups and static groups: this is really where the epiphany happened: I feel like I have so much more control over my data. I have almost 5000 records in my database from very different projects and the ability to group them in a combination of smart groups and static groups and to thus have access to them instantly is incredibly useful. An added nice thing about this is you can select more than one group and combine them either with AND or OR for even more control over how you view your records. Wow!You can also store records quickly in the hitlist by marking the checkbox next to them.
This brings me to features I missed in Endnote from my Mac-OS 9 Procite days: Marking records and a term list view. Keywords become really useful when you have them in a list and see all the records that use that keyword just by clicking on it. Ah! You can also select more than one Keyword and thus combine them.
The responsiveness of the developer. Other people have said this but I will repeat it here because it is really amazing. I had a small issue with importing my endnote library and -- boom -- three days later the issue is resolved beautifully in the new version. Questions are also answered almost immediately.
So far, I have found no features from Endnote that I miss in Bookends, though I consider myself a power user. I used Endnote for years and Procite before that. You can search the Library of Congress and a number of other Libraries directly from Bookends (as well as PubMed and various national Amazon incarnations). Very nice and, I think, quicker than Endnote whose "Connect" feature has always been buggy. Bookends integrates with MS Word and has the ability to scan rtf files. The import from Endnote preserves the unique record # so that I can use the temporary citations I already have. Bookends also integrates very nicely with Mellel, a word processor a lot of Mac users swear by. I myself use Pages 2, hoping that one day Pages (3?) will be open enough to allow integration. Until then, I can make do with rtf or doc scan.
So my recommendation if you are looking for a bibliographic manager or are tired of sluggish, buggy, overpriced Endnote updates: do check out Bookends. It is a serious contender and a true Mac application.
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Existing users, 
Moving to Bookends from Endnote: An Epiphany - izann
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this well reasoned, detailed review. I am not a Bookends power user so am not yet aware of its capabilities. However, I have a number of friends who are new and enthusiastic users of Endnotes, and I was wondering if for the additional price they were getting something I don't have. From this review I'm guessing they are not. I was considering buying Endnotes. I won't now, but I will spend some time learning the untapped capabilities of Bookends.Reply to This
Saturday, September 02 2006 @ 10:58 AM PDT