Direct comparison
ChemRxiv vs. bioRxiv Compared
ChemRxiv (chemistry, 5-society coalition) vs. bioRxiv (life sciences, CSHL/openRxiv): scope, governance, screening, and license differences.
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How do ChemRxiv, bioRxiv compare side by side?
The table below compares ChemRxiv, bioRxiv across 10 procurement-relevant dimensions, from subject scope through cost to authors.
Side-by-side comparison
| Dimension | ChemRxiv | bioRxiv |
|---|---|---|
| Subject scope | Chemistry and adjacent fields (organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, chemical biology, chemical engineering, materials science) | Life sciences broadly (genetics, cell biology, neuroscience, ecology, molecular biology, and more) |
| Operator / owner | Coalition of five chemical societies: ACS, RSC, GDCh, CCS, CSJ | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, via openRxiv (since March 2025) |
| Launch year | 2017 | 2013 |
| Hosting platform | Wiley Research Exchange Preprints (selected 2026) | openRxiv-operated infrastructure |
| Peer review | None — screening for scope/plagiarism/harm only | None — screening for scope/plagiarism/harm only |
| Clinical trial results | Out of scope | Out of scope — routed to medRxiv instead |
| DOI assignment | Yes, per version | Yes, per version |
| License options | Author choice, e.g. CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC0-style | Author choice, e.g. CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC0-style |
| Journal transfer pipeline | Direct transfer into ACS, RSC, Wiley and other participating chemistry journals | B2J transfer pipeline into participating life-science journals |
| Cost to authors | Free | Free |
Common questions
Common questions about ChemRxiv vs bioRxiv
Can I post the same paper to both ChemRxiv and bioRxiv?
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No — each preprint should go to the single server that best matches its subject matter. Posting essentially duplicate manuscripts to multiple preprint servers is discouraged and can create citation and version-tracking confusion. If a manuscript genuinely spans chemistry and biology, pick whichever server's scope and readership are the better match, based on each server's published subject-category list.
Does either server perform peer review?
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No. Both ChemRxiv and bioRxiv only screen submissions for scope, plagiarism, and potential public-harm content before posting. Neither certifies the scientific validity of a preprint's results — that is the function peer review still serves once the work is submitted to a journal.
Does posting a preprint stop me from publishing in a journal later?
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Generally no. The great majority of chemistry and life-science journals, including those affiliated with ChemRxiv's and bioRxiv's own operating coalitions, accept manuscripts that were previously posted as preprints. Always check the specific target journal's preprint policy, since a small minority of venues still restrict it.
Where do clinical trial results belong instead?
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Neither ChemRxiv nor bioRxiv accepts original human clinical trial results. That content belongs on medRxiv, the dedicated clinical/health-sciences preprint server bioRxiv's operators launched in 2019 — see our comparison of bioRxiv vs. medRxiv.
Going deeper
