# zaytoun/scihub.py

Python API and command-line tool for Sci-Hub

Repository: https://github.com/zaytoun/scihub.py
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/scihubpy
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2021-11-25T13:30:39+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3819, "days_push": 1742, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1055, forks 238 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:24.176278+00:00)

## What it is
An unofficial Python API and command-line tool for Sci-Hub that can search Google Scholar and download academic papers by DOI, PMID, or URL. It can be imported as a library or used directly from the terminal.

## Use cases
- download papers from sci-hub by doi
- bulk download a list of academic articles from a file
- search google scholar and download results
- fetch paper pdfs programmatically in python
- command line tool to grab research papers

## When to choose
- you need to programmatically or from the CLI download papers via Sci-Hub
- you want to batch-download articles from a list of identifiers
- you want a simple Python library wrapping Sci-Hub and Google Scholar search

## When to avoid
- you need a maintained tool - the last release was 2021 and Sci-Hub domains/captchas frequently break it
- you need legal open-access-only retrieval (use Unpaywall or Semantic Scholar instead)
- captcha handling is required for your workflow

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: http-client, web-scraping, cli, pdf
- domain: developer-tools, education
- platform: python, cli, cross-platform
- tags: sci-hub, academic-papers, google-scholar, paper-downloader, open-access, command-line, search

## Member repositories
- zaytoun/scihub.py (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:24.176278+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:58:42.262139+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/zaytoun/scihub.py (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:24.176278+00:00, sha efe9bf4d7ac9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.