> HAL is decidedly second-tier. Given the option, everyone would pick arXiv over HAL.

Can you elaborate on that?

I agree that dredge is a huge problem with HAL, but it's getting better. While arXiv is still stuck with a unfriendly UI.

Turns out that "better" for many people means "better moderated", since static hosting is hard to differentiate. And at present Arxiv is winning that one (at the expense of considerably higher running costs due to said moderation)