Knowledge · Scientific Output
arXiv Preprints
From 306 papers in 1991 to 284,000 a year: the speed of open scientific publishing.
- First paper: August 1991
- 3.1M+ total preprints today
- Plateaued 2020-22, then re-surged
- Front-runs peer review by months
arXiv began in 1991 as a physics preprint server running on Paul Ginsparg’s machine at Los Alamos; 306 papers went up that first year. Today it holds over 3.1 million preprints across physics, mathematics, computer science, biology and economics, and took 284,486 submissions in 2025 alone. The climb is not smooth. Submissions flattened to roughly 2% annual growth from 2020 through 2022, then surged again from 2023 as machine-learning work poured in. Computer science is now the largest category, having overtaken mathematics. The preprint goes up first, and formal peer review catches up months or years later; for many fields the platform has become the de facto site of scientific record, at the price of more noise and less filtering.
| Year | Value | Note | Projected |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 306 | Launch year (Aug 1991) | |
| 1995 | 13,014 | ||
| 2000 | 30,601 | ||
| 2005 | 46,855 | ||
| 2010 | 70,131 | ||
| 2015 | 105,280 | ||
| 2018 | 140,616 | ||
| 2020 | 178,329 | Plateau begins | |
| 2021 | 181,630 | ||
| 2022 | 185,692 | Three years at ~2%/yr | |
| 2023 | 208,493 | AI-era surge | |
| 2024 | 244,031 | ||
| 2025 | 284,486 | 284,486 submissions (+17% YoY) |