I used Zotero through my MA and into my PhD, when I discovered and began writing in LaTeX in emacs/AucTeX instead of LibreOffice. I used the Better BibTeX plugin [0] to maintain a BibLaTeX file, but as I developed my emacs skills I moved to RefTeX.
At that point I realised that my BibLaTeX file was really a mess. Better BibTeX created tons of needless double curly brackets {{like this}} in the BibLaTeX file, making searching it directly a pain. And it created lots of @misc entries, the BibLaTeX entry of last resort, when it should have made @url's and other things.
Zotero has massively benefited my work, but it's also been something of a training wheel which in the longer term slowed me down. Emacs/AucTeX/RefTeX does everything Zotero does (at least according to my use) but faster, cleaner, more holistically, and with more features (eg crossref'ing entries). And two years on I'm still cleaning up that Better BibTeX's BibLaTeX file.
[0] https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/
* edited because I confused AucTeX with RefTeX.
At that point I realised that my BibLaTeX file was really a mess. Better BibTeX created tons of needless double curly brackets {{like this}} in the BibLaTeX file, making searching it directly a pain. And it created lots of @misc entries, the BibLaTeX entry of last resort, when it should have made @url's and other things.
Zotero has massively benefited my work, but it's also been something of a training wheel which in the longer term slowed me down. Emacs/AucTeX/RefTeX does everything Zotero does (at least according to my use) but faster, cleaner, more holistically, and with more features (eg crossref'ing entries). And two years on I'm still cleaning up that Better BibTeX's BibLaTeX file.
[0] https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/
* edited because I confused AucTeX with RefTeX.