HAL (hal.science)
Shares rank 5 of 6 academic paper archives by recommenders
Free open archive for research papers, used especially in mathematics and well integrated with arXiv; critics say it is second-tier to arXiv and dredge is a problem.
Free open archive for research papers, used especially in mathematics and well integrated with arXiv; critics say it is second-tier to arXiv and dredge is a problem.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple, low-friction, lightweight
“HAL is enough and way less friction”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “HAL – Harmful Action Limiter: Lean command guard for AI coding agents.” “I like how simple and lite it is.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “HAL – Harmful Action Limiter: Lean command guard for AI coding agents.” Blocks destructive commands via shared rules
“It sits in the hook, checks every command against a set of rules, and blocks the destructive ones.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “HAL – Harmful Action Limiter: Lean command guard for AI coding agents.” “Plus, this enables shared rules across our company’s engineers/teams”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “HAL – Harmful Action Limiter: Lean command guard for AI coding agents.”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dredge is a huge problem
“dredge is a huge problem with HAL, but it's getting better”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “ArXiv Declares Independence from Cornell”
Other academic paper archives people recommend
The four most recommended other academic paper archives, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| arXiv | 83 | 38 | 69% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Sci-Hub | 17 | 3 | 85% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Zenodo | 9 | 2 | 82% | 5 | — | — |
| ACM Digital Library | 9 | 17 | 35% | 4 | — | — |
| HAL (hal.science)This page | 7 | 1 | 88% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“there are plenty of good articles there”
“quite well integrated with arxiv”
“dredge is a huge problem with HAL, but it's getting better”
“HAL is decidedly second-tier. Given the option, everyone would pick arXiv over HAL.”
“It is actually quite common to come across HAL in subfields of mathematics in my experience.”
“HAL is enough and way less friction”
“I like how simple and lite it is.”
“Plus, this enables shared rules across our company’s engineers/teams”
“It sits in the hook, checks every command against a set of rules, and blocks the destructive ones.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.