Where to Publish Your Research for Free: One Platform per Content Type

When you want to share your research with the world for free, the trick is matching each type of output to the platform built for it. Posting a dataset to a preprint server, or a manuscript to a code host, only makes your work harder to find and cite. Here is a simple map: one well-established, free, public platform for each kind of academic content.

Every platform below is free to use and makes your content publicly accessible, and most also mint a DOI so your work stays citable:

• arXiv — Preprints: the standard preprint server for physics, mathematics, computer science, and related fields, where you post un-reviewed manuscripts before or alongside formal peer review.
• Zenodo — Datasets: a CERN-backed general-purpose repository that issues a DOI for any file you deposit, making it ideal for raw research data.
• ResearchGate — Academic papers: a scholarly social network where you can share author copies (PDFs) of your published papers and connect with other researchers.
• PubPub — Open journals: a platform for running community-led open-access journals, publishing academic content as living HTML and rich text rather than static PDFs.
• Figshare — Supplementary media: a repository for figures, charts, posters, and other supplementary media, each assigned its own DOI.
• GitHub — Research software: the standard host for code and scripts; pair a release with Zenodo to make your software formally citable.
• OSF (Open Science Framework) — Study protocols: a free hub for pre-registering studies and organizing all of a project's materials in one place.
• Protocols.io — Lab methodologies: a repository for detailed, versioned, step-by-step lab protocols that others can follow and cite.
• Wikiversity — Open courseware: a Wikimedia project for hosting open learning materials, lecture notes, and slides.
• DSpace — Institutional output: the open-source repository software that powers many university libraries' archives of theses and dissertations.

The takeaway: pick the home that fits the content. Manuscripts go to preprint servers and journals, data and media to repositories that mint DOIs, code to GitHub (mirrored to Zenodo for citation), and institutional work to your university's DSpace archive. Putting each piece where readers expect it maximizes both discoverability and proper credit.