PeerJ is a fully open-access publisher founded in 2012, producing peer-reviewed research in biology, medicine, computer science, and related fields. All articles are freely available as PDF under CC BY — no subscription, no paywall. PeerJ is indexed in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, and its articles are cited by high-impact journals across the life sciences.
Like other academic journals, PeerJ PDFs use two-column layout with embedded figures, which renders poorly on an e-reader. Converting to EPUB gives you a clean single-column reflowable document for reading on a Kindle or Kobo with adjustable font, night mode, and offline access.
| Journal | Field | Launch | PDF cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| PeerJ Life and Environment | Biology, medicine, ecology, veterinary science | 2013 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Computer Science | All areas of CS & data science | 2015 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Analytical Chemistry | Analytical chemistry | 2019 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Inorganic Chemistry | Inorganic chemistry | 2019 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Organic Chemistry | Organic chemistry | 2019 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Physical Chemistry | Physical chemistry | 2019 | Free, CC BY |
| PeerJ Materials Science | Materials science & engineering | 2019 | Free, CC BY |
10.7717/peerj — paste the DOI at https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.XXXXX to navigate directly.| Publisher | Biology journals | CS journals | DOI prefix | Indexed in PubMed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PeerJ | Yes (PeerJ L&E) | Yes (PeerJ CS) | 10.7717 | Yes |
| PLOS ONE | Yes | Partial | 10.1371 | Yes |
| eLife | Yes | No | 10.7554 | Yes |
| BMC Biology | Yes | No | 10.1186 | Yes |
| Frontiers in CS | No | Yes | 10.3389 | Partial |
| arXiv (CS) | No | Yes (preprints) | – | No |
Yes. PeerJ is a fully open-access publisher — every article in every PeerJ journal is published under Creative Commons CC BY licence, which means the PDF is freely available to anyone without paywall or institutional login. Go to peerj.com, open any article, and click the PDF button. PeerJ Computer Science and PeerJ Life and Environment are similarly fully open access.
PeerJ's flagship journal PeerJ Life and Environment covers biology, medicine, veterinary science, ecology, environmental science, and related fields. PeerJ Computer Science covers all areas of computer science and data science. PeerJ also publishes specialised journals: PeerJ Analytical Chemistry, PeerJ Inorganic Chemistry, PeerJ Materials Science, PeerJ Organic Chemistry, and PeerJ Physical Chemistry. All are fully open access.
Both are broad open-access journals that evaluate scientific rigour without judging impact. PeerJ's peer review model requires authors to become lifetime members (one-time fee) or pay per article. PLOS ONE charges article processing charges (APCs). PeerJ tends to publish biology and computer science; PLOS ONE is broader across all sciences. Both produce high-quality peer-reviewed research freely available as PDF.
PeerJ's HTML article viewer is excellent for desktop reading. However, it requires an internet connection and is not optimised for offline e-reader use. Converting the PDF to EPUB gives you an offline, reflowable file you can read on a Kindle or Kobo with adjustable font size, night mode, and device-level annotations — useful for reading during commutes or when away from a screen.
Yes. PeerJ is indexed in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, OpenAlex, and Semantic Scholar. Search any of these databases to find PeerJ articles, then follow the link to peerj.com to download the free PDF.
Related: PLOS to EPUB · eLife to EPUB · BioMed Central to EPUB · PDF to EPUB for researchers