Sci-Hub and Alexandra Basic Information

Sci-Hub started in 2011 as a web application to download research article requested by user, using library accounts. In 2012 Library Genesis, that collected e-books, wanted to collect research articles too and started saving papers downloaded by Sci-Hub to their database. Before Sci-Hub there were other websites to get research papers for free but they were also different from Sci-Hub in design.

Source: engineuring.wordpress.com