A next-gen lightning-fast, lightweight reference manager built with Rust & GPUI
Core Features • Why Lumen • Download • Contributing
Lumen was born from a simple pain point: academic software has become too bloated. Zotero is feature-rich but resource-heavy, and its UI grows sluggish over time. EndNote and other traditional tools have PDF reading experiences stuck in the last century.
In this new vibe coding era, we decided to build something truly good with a modern tech stack. Lumen rejects the bloat of Electron and other dynamic runtimes. It's built from the ground up with Rust and the GPUI framework (a high-performance GPU-accelerated UI framework by the Zed editor team), designed to deliver a fast, lightweight, and modern research experience.
- Buttery smooth: Full hardware acceleration for zooming, scrolling, and page-turning that far outperforms traditional PDF engines.
- Deep interaction: Cross-page text selection, powerful global text search, and high-quality highlighting and annotation.
- Smart metadata parsing: Auto-fetch detailed metadata via DOI and other academic data sources — no manual entry needed.
- Easy citation export: Full BibTeX (
.bib), IEEE and Elsevier citation support, seamless integration with academic paper citations.
- WebDAV support: Easily connect your trusted cloud storage (Nutstore, InfiniCLOUD, etc.) for seamless PDF syncing.
- Multi-device consistency: MySQL-backed storage architecture ensures strong data consistency across devices — no more sync conflicts.
- Immersive reading: Built-in multi-language translation engine integrated into your research reading workflow. Current release prioritizes English-to-Chinese translation for barrier-free reading of international papers.
No Electron baggage — pure native performance:
- Windows: Standard installer (
.exe) and portable edition (.zip). - macOS (ARM64): Native Apple Silicon support.
- macOS (x86_64): Intel Mac support (experimental).
- Linux: Debian/Ubuntu package (
.deb).
| Feature | Lumen 🌱 | Zotero | EndNote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tech Stack | Rust + GPUI | JavaScript + XULRunner | C++ / Legacy UI |
| Memory & Resource Usage | Minimal (pure native, no virtual render layer) | High (based on old Firefox engine) | Moderate |
| Modern UI | Yes (Modern & Minimalist) | Dated | Traditional |
Head to the Releases page to download the latest version for your platform.
⚠️ Note: This project is currently in pre-release. Core features are ready, but you may encounter rough edges due to differences in system environments and complex PDF formats. Early feedback is welcome!
All forms of contribution are welcome! Bug reports, feature suggestions, and pull requests are all appreciated.
If you encounter crashes or rough experiences on your specific setup, don't hesitate to open an Issue. Let's shape Lumen into the ultimate tool for researchers!
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
Thanks for being part of Lumen's journey! If this project helps your research, give us a star 🌟!