Zenodo
Shares rank 3 of 6 academic paper archives by recommenders
Free research repository that issues DOIs and preserves papers long term; critics note uploads that hang and metadata that can be changed.
Free research repository that issues DOIs and preserves papers long term; critics note uploads that hang and metadata that can be changed.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Free DOIs and timestamped priority
“You could publish preliminary versions of your paper on Zenodo. This way you get a DOI and can claim authorship”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)” “publish everything on zenodo for timestamp/priority”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “ArXiv's Updated Rate Limit Policy” Long-term preservation of research
“government sponsored long term storage facilities like Zenodo that are likely to outlast ACM”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “ACM Is Now Open Access” “Zenodo is among the best for long-term preservation”
Comment from 15 Aug 2026 in “Alternative to Internet Archive” Seen as a positive step
“Zenodo seems like a good step in the right direction.”
Comment from 19 Sep 2026 in “Science Is Open Software” “Yes, it's not everything, but it's a start.”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Europe's next-generation weather satellite sends back first images”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Metadata can be changed
“their meta-data management is somewhat problematic; i.e., it can be changed at whim, which makes indexing difficult”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “ArXiv Declares Independence from Cornell” Uploads hang and reset
“uploads hang and will just reset periodically”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “Zenodo performance: an update on the current situation” Attracts AI-generated papers
“Has Zenodo become the place where "citizen scientists" post their Ai generated papers”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Zenodo performance: an update on the current situation” “notorious for self-publishing authors plagued by runaway AI sycophantic psychosis”
Comment from 2 Aug 2026 in “Persistent State Machines: LLM Attention with INT4 In-Memory Cells”
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 |
| ZenodoThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 5 | — | — |
| ACM Digital Library | 9 | 17 | 35% | 4 | — | — |
| JSTOR | 7 | 4 | 64% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“publish everything on zenodo for timestamp/priority”
“Zenodo seems like a good step in the right direction.”
“uploads hang and will just reset periodically”
“Has Zenodo become the place where "citizen scientists" post their Ai generated papers”
“Zenodo is among the best for long-term preservation”
“notorious for self-publishing authors plagued by runaway AI sycophantic psychosis”
“Zenodo is a great asset to the research community”
“their meta-data management is somewhat problematic; i.e., it can be changed at whim, which makes indexing difficult”
“It has no requirements to submit your LaTeX sources, any PDF will be fine.”
“It is more user friendly, as well.”
“You could publish preliminary versions of your paper on Zenodo. This way you get a DOI and can claim authorship”
“Yes, it's not everything, but it's a start.”
“government sponsored long term storage facilities like Zenodo that are likely to outlast ACM”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.