Thinking about self-hosting an ebook library? Here are the open source software you can consider.
I enjoy booklore, was easy to setup. I don’t think its very matureyet though. Just updated last night and an annoying bug where sometimes books wouldn’t show up after import has been fixed, so the upside is active development!
Honestly most of these look to be almost the same so I’m not sure what the key defining features would be.
Been using booklore for a few months now. It definitely has that new car smell to it while also having lots of small irritating bugs or UX oversights (like moving books from one shelf to another doesn’t actually deselect them so selecting another book and moving it to a different shelf moves every previously selected book to that new shelf). Keep in mind I haven’t added or altered anything in my library in about a month so this could’ve been fixed. I still think it works better than calibre-web which is what I switched from and I definitely think it’s worth a quick setup on docker.
I’ve been using calibre since around 2009 and it is an incredible piece of software. For handling ebooks, specially for eBook readers and file formats, it has no equal. Unfortunately it is built around the idea of installing it into one computer and connecting your eBook to it. Which makes it a bit clunky in my opinion nowadays.
Maybe calibre web fixes that, I need to check it one day. For actual books I think it falls between that and booklore.
All the other options seem to be more indicated to comics and manga, which is another aspect I’ve been noticing calibre does not do such a great job. I think I’ll have to keep two different ones, one for reading from a tablet comics and such and another for ebooks to send to the reader.
… comics and manga, which is another aspect I’ve been noticing calibre does not do such a great job
Absolutely. Calibre is horrible with anything that is fixed format. I recently backed up my entire Kindle library with about 1k manga volumes, expecting to be able to convert from KFX to EPUB format as I have been doing for my regular books for 15+ years. Calibre failed awfully at this. The only thing it’s reasonably good at with comics, is converting to ZIP format. So I had to write a Python script to take the KFX -> ZIP outputs from Calibre and convert them into working EPUB files.
There’s a docker that essentially sets up a web VNC for Calibre. I do this for file conversion, DRM removal (only books I buy), etc.
Then I use Calibre-web for the OPDS server and nice web UI.
Hmm so how does the workflow look like for you? Is the calibre web tied up to the DB of that calibre VNC? Do you manually add the books to calibre over the VNC? Then is calibre web allowed to make changes to the DB or does it have read only access? as far as I understand calibre is not recommended to have multiple sources of changes to the DB as it can end up corrupted or something? (At least it can’t resolve conflicts I think)
As a solution it seems like it could work, but it feels like over complicated to get around the limitations of calibre.
Yes, they share the database. Yes, I add the books to calibre. I think I have it as read only for calibre-web.
Regarding overcomplication, I admit the initial setup took a while. But I’ve had it running for a couple years now with no major issues.
In addition to Calibre-Web there is also Calibre Web Automated.
I just set this up last week to finally organize and dedrm my amazon eBook library I downloaded before they disabled that. Working great so far.
FYI, you can still dedrm Amazon books. Even ones you buy today.
Edit: Not going to lie, it’s a lot more complicated now. But it actually works for Amazon borrowed books too (i.e. - Libby library books)
You have to use KindleForPC 2.8.0. You download the books you want, then run an app called KFXKeyExtract28 to pull out all the keys.
You have to have DeDRM installed in calibre and point the plugin to the keyfile that gets generated (you only have to do this once)
Then you can import the books into calibre and everything will work as normal.
https://github.com/Satsuoni/DeDRM_tools/discussions/25
Don’t get discouraged, it works, you just have to figure out the right workflow that you’re comfortable with.
Also, I have no idea why they don’t just update the ReadMe, as it seems like this discussion thread is the only actual place this is documented.
Thank you I appreciate the info I mentally already shifted to not using amazon for ebooks anymore but there are occasional sales I’ll have to get this new method setup soon.
I have tried every possible set up, I’ve got to say that the best one so far for me is sychthing + Koreader: dead simple, no databases, synchs annotations and highlights as well, books are simply epub files + metadata.
Aka no dealing with exports, database corruption or stuff like that.
Caliber
Aren’t ebooks like… Miniscule, file-size wise? Like smaller than mp3s?
Most of my ebooks are large as they are comics. You also have EPUB3 ebooks now, which can contain images and audio in them too (think combined ebook + audiobook). So they can get pretty large.
Oooo, I didn’t know that. That’s fancy
Some can be very big if they include pictures. (like cookbooks)
However, yes… if it’s just say a fiction book with no pictures, they are kilobytes in size.
The one I’ve enjoyed the most is https://www.audiobookshelf.org/, it may be “focused” on audio books, but works really well for everything. It also supports offline mode (meaning downloading local copies in the app).
I do the same. It is not perfect for it but it works and it is already running. I’m not sure I would recommend it for anyone not looking for audiobooks
I tried Calibre web and Kogma.
Calibre is just bad software at this point, it’s clunky and not really designed as a server.
Kogma was fine, but a web only interface made it hit or miss. The big selling point for me with audio bookshelf was the ability to download local copies.
I’m on calibre web automated but I’m looking to migrate away. Gets tons of features that I’m not using and I can’t keep up with. Also the slop release notes are barely readable. I put up an issue for that, not sure if it’s gonna help.
I just add a book via the web interface now and then and later download it via OPDS. Probably giving Booklore a try.
I did this switch a few months back when Readarr really started to fall apart on me. Booklore has been excellent for my normal ebook library, epub, and a few pdfs. The exception being larger comic files which I find it struggles with. I’ve been using it directly connected via OPDS and it’s syncing service to KOReader, and it’s been awesome.
Overall, I highly recommend Booklore at this point!
I am using booklore for the same reason as you and it works very well. The only feature I’m missing is highlighting, but I can live without it.
So… if my SO is buying ebooks from the Kobo store, can they upload to Calibre (etc) and then someone else can download it?
They read a heap of books and want to share them with their family… who are on Kindles, with that DRM nonsense (boooo)
Yep, though with calibre in particular you want to kind of make sure it’s locked down real good. People sniff for the ports it uses, so open calibre-web libraries get found quickly, and then will usually have some attempts at cracking.
I had mine set up as a local-only thing (could only access from my home WiFi), but from experiences with other apps that have similar crawlers, it takes about a week for them to be found. Just make sure everyone’s passwords are decent, or just share one account if it’s people you trust.
Ok, good point.
This would be local only so they can up/download ebooks here and share with the family - when they’re here.
Thanks
