# JSTOR

7 Hacker News commenters recommended JSTOR and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend JSTOR as a non-profit archive of old journal articles that are hard to reach elsewhere; critics say much research stays behind paywalls.

## Why people recommend it

- Does real work digitizing journal articles (3 comments): "It's a non-profit that scans old journal articles that would otherwise be a huge pain to access." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49388904)) "did the actual work necessary to make many of those PDFs exist in the first place" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393776)) "JSTOR does actual legit work to make scientific articles easier to access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49392330))
- Easy access without a physical library (2 comments): "That's useful to anyone who wants to read an old journal article without going to a physical library." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393557)) "It's a non-profit that scans old journal articles that would otherwise be a huge pain to access." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49388904))

## What people warn about

- Research kept behind paywalls (3 comments): "it could have been paid for by the government directly without then having the material behind a paywall" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49394983)) "still hold those papers behind paywalls instead of releasing them into the public domain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49381770)) "deeply hilaritragic that his paper is paywalled by JSTOR" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50213227))
- Accused of profiting from paywalls (2 comments): "Aaron Schwartz was executed by proxy by JSTOR and the feds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421121)) "JSTOR's bullshit paper-hosting cash cow" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49385450))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [arXiv](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arxiv.md): 83 recommend
- [Sci-Hub](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sci-hub.md): 17 recommend
- [Zenodo](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zenodo.md): 9 recommend
- [ACM Digital Library](https://hackerapproved.com/p/acm-digital-library.md): 9 recommend
- [HAL (hal.science)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hal.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.jstor.org/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "JSTOR", https://hackerapproved.com/p/jstor/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).