shouldiuse.io

New check

Categories

VERDICT

Should I use MDPI?

Open-access academic journal publisher - mdpi.com

Depends. Reasonable if you need fast, funded open-access publication and your institution accepts MDPI journals. Avoid it if you're building a tenure case or your field discounts MDPI — the reputation risk is real and widely documented.

Confidence

Medium. Based on ~20 public sources: MDPI's own pages, academic forums, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and breach databases.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support quality
  • Security posture

Pricing

Varies by journal

Article Processing Charge (APC)

ModelAuthor-pays APC
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierNo

Best for

  • Researchers needing fast open-access publication
  • Authors with grant or institutional APC funding
  • Interdisciplinary work without an obvious journal home
  • Authors whose institutions already accept MDPI titles

Not for

  • Tenure-track researchers building prestige CVs
  • Anyone whose institution discounts or flags MDPI journals
  • Authors who cannot pay an APC out of pocket
  • Fields where MDPI outlets carry stigma with peers and hiring committees

Gotchas - check before you buy

high

Many researchers report peers and hiring committees discount MDPI lines on a CV.

medium

Invoices are emailed shortly after acceptance — budget for the APC before submitting, not after.

medium

Quality varies widely between journals and high-volume special issues.

medium

Your submission data passed through a system breached in August 2016.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Fast editorial and review turnaround versus traditional journals
  • Fully open access — all articles free for anyone to read
  • Large multidisciplinary journal portfolio across many fields
  • APC discounts and institutional funding routes exist

Cons

  • Reputation contested; reviewers call it a predatory publisher
  • Peer-review quality widely questioned by researchers online
  • Authors pay significant APCs; fees criticized as unjustified
  • 2016 breach exposed manuscript submission system logs
  • Employees publicly warn others against working there

Sources & method

Analyzed 9/20/2026 - 12 sources - One known incident: in August 2016 manuscript submission system logs were intercepted and copied; MDPI appears in breach databases.

official x2review x7security x2news x1
  • 2016 manuscript submission system breach, Submission system logs were intercepted and copied during a backup in August 2016; the MDPI breach is listed on Have I Been Pwned and Mozilla Monitor.

Key stats

  • Value for money: 2/5

    Rating

  • Varies by journal

    Starting price

  • 12

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 2/5. Steep APCs; researchers openly question whether fees are justified
  • Ease of use: 4/5. Fast, streamlined submission and editing per users
  • Feature depth: 3/5. Huge journal breadth; per-journal rigor varies widely
  • Support quality: 2/5. Mixed author reports; employees warn against company
  • Security posture: 2/5. 2016 breach hit the manuscript submission system
  • 1 Reported data breaches 2016 submission-system incident
  • 384 Glassdoor employee reviews sentiment skews negative
  • 1996 Founded Basel, Switzerland
  • Author-pays APC Pricing model per-article fee, no free publishing tier

Pricing

Article Processing Charge (APC)

Varies by journal

  • Paid per accepted article
  • Invoice emailed after acceptance
  • Waivers and institutional funding options exist

Security

One known incident: in August 2016 manuscript submission system logs were intercepted and copied; MDPI appears in breach databases.

  • 2016 manuscript submission system breachSubmission system logs were intercepted and copied during a backup in August 2016; the MDPI breach is listed on Have I Been Pwned and Mozilla Monitor.³

What users say

Academic forum sentiment is split: users praise the fast turnaround but heavily criticize review rigor, fees, and reputation.

“Good experience thus far”
ResearchGate
“I do not recommend MDPI”
Glassdoor

Alternatives

Compare MDPI with each alternative.

Companies that use it

  • University of Arkansas
Full analysis

Based on ~20 public sources: MDPI's own pages, academic forums, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and breach databases.

Fast open-access publisher with a contested reputation — fine for quick outputs, risky for tenure-track CVs.

Methodology

Based on ~20 public sources: MDPI's own pages, academic forums, Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and breach databases.

Sources

  1. MDPI APC Information and FAQmdpi.com
    official
  2. MDPI Editorial Processmdpi.com
    official
  3. MDPI Submission System Logs Intercepted (2016)mdpi.com
    security
  4. Have I Been Pwned: MDPI Data Breachhaveibeenpwned.com
    security
  5. Trustpilot reviews of mdpi.comtrustpilot.com
    review
  6. MDPI AG Reviews — Glassdoorglassdoor.com
    review
  7. Actual consequences of publishing in MDPI — Redditreddit.com
    review
  8. Reviewing papers for MDPI — Academia StackExchangeacademia.stackexchange.com
    review
  9. Is MDPI a predatory publisher? — Paolo Crosettopaolocrosetto.wordpress.com
    review
  10. Is MDPI Peer Reviewed or Predatory? — CASRAIcasrai.org
    review
  11. Risk of publishing with MDPI — Redditreddit.com
    review
  12. MDPI — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
    news

Rate this review

Anonymous. You can change your vote.

Loading votes…

Comments

One queue. No nested comments. Give a display name first. Limit: 200 words per comment and 7 comments per day. You can edit or delete yours.

Save a name to write a comment.

0 / 200 words

No comments yet.