OSF will make all projects read-only

OSF will make all projects read-only

On August 11, the nonprofit Center for Open Science (COS) announced changes to the Open Science Framework (OSF), a platform where research teams managed projects and shared materials. Starting November 16, 2026, users will no longer be able to create projects or child components in OSF. On February 19, 2027, all projects will become read-only. Existing public projects will remain available through their current links and DOI identifiers, which provide permanent digital references. Preregistrations, which record study plans before research begins, and preprints will also remain available.

OSF became publicly available in 2012. The platform helped research teams preserve a record of their work, including plans, files, and decisions. Once the results were ready for publication, researchers could make this record public alongside them. Openness therefore began during the research process, not during manuscript preparation.

Over time, OSF had to serve simultaneously as a workspace, a record of the research process, a repository for published results, and a free private storage service. According to COS, the platform has more than one million registered users and hosts more than 29 million published files. However, 63% of projects, more than 650 thousand, were never made public, and almost 200 thousand users used OSF solely for private storage. Thousands of spam accounts also uploaded pirated films and advertisements.

COS estimates that maintaining this system would cost $4–5 million per year, while recurring revenue covers only 10–20% of that amount. OSF will therefore focus on maintaining the public record of research, including plans, preregistrations, preprints, and links to results. COS recommends storing new data, code, and other materials in an appropriate service or repository, then linking them to records in OSF.

“Researchers will need to use more tools, but each one, including OSF, will perform its role in open science well,” writes Brian Nosek, the author of the explanation for the transition.

After February 2027, a completed public project will remain available as a record of the work. New data and code will be stored across several services, while OSF will connect plans and preprints to those external materials.