Calibre-Web vs KOReader
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted e-books & media library options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Calibre-Web with
choose an app… Free Programming Books Jellyfin Paperless-ngx qBittorrent SRS Koodo Reader Calibre Readest Navidrome Kodi Ebook2audiobook Koel Jackett Beets DeDRM Tools PeerTube Transmission Sonarr MeTube Kavita Ladder Wikidpad Notes Suwayomi-Server OPDS-PSE Reader Hub Sigil Open Library Komga Calibre-Web Automated Libation PDF Arranger pdf2htmlEX Librum Papra 13ft Calibre-Web Automated Book Downloader Ryot Readarr Yamtrack LANraragi Thorium Reader BookWyrm Stump Teedy OpenBooks Docspell Mango Plato Standard Ebooks Tools Whisparr Audiobook Storyteller Mylar3 Kapowarr ttu Ebook Reader mangadex-downloader Librivox Mirror NeoDB Zimit ComicTagger Audiobookshelf-tools Komf kobodl BookLogr Koha Suwayomi manga-py Upvote RSS Buchhaltung Books BicBucStriim Tranga Tinyfeed EpubPress KOHighlights Booksonic-Air ProsePub Manga-Tagger Atsumeru Evergreen Kthoom COPS dir2opds RERO ILS MangAdventure MyMangaDB Readflow Inkheart Petrolette Ubooquity Vore
Compare KOReader with
choose an app… Free Programming Books Jellyfin Paperless-ngx qBittorrent SRS Koodo Reader Calibre Readest Navidrome Kodi Ebook2audiobook Koel Jackett Beets DeDRM Tools PeerTube Transmission Sonarr MeTube Kavita Ladder Wikidpad Notes Suwayomi-Server OPDS-PSE Reader Hub Sigil Open Library Komga Calibre-Web Automated Libation PDF Arranger pdf2htmlEX Librum Papra 13ft Calibre-Web Automated Book Downloader Readarr LANraragi Thorium Reader BookWyrm Stump Teedy OpenBooks Docspell Mango Plato Standard Ebooks Tools Whisparr Audiobook Storyteller Mylar3 Kapowarr ttu Ebook Reader mangadex-downloader Librivox Mirror Zimit ComicTagger Audiobookshelf-tools Komf kobodl BookLogr Koha Suwayomi manga-py Upvote RSS Buchhaltung Books BicBucStriim Tranga Tinyfeed EpubPress KOHighlights Booksonic-Air ProsePub Manga-Tagger Atsumeru Evergreen Kthoom COPS dir2opds RERO ILS MangAdventure MyMangaDB Readflow Inkheart Petrolette Ubooquity Vore
Feature Calibre-Web KOReader Category E-books & Media Library E-books & Media Library License GPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0 Language HTML Lua Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 256 MB Deployment docker binary, source GitHub stars ★ 17,830 ★ 28,800 First released 2017 2012 Replaces Kindle, Goodreads Kindle, Pocketbook reader
Why pick each one
Choose Calibre-Web if… Great companion to Calibre Multi-user access Lightweight Calibre-Web details Choose KOReader if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license Mature project with 28.8k GitHub stars Written in Lua Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM KOReader details
Frequently asked questions Is Calibre-Web or KOReader better? Neither is universally better. KOReader has the larger community, while Calibre-Web is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Calibre-Web and KOReader free and open-source? Yes. Calibre-Web is licensed under GPL-3.0 and KOReader under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Calibre-Web and KOReader with Docker? Calibre-Web: yes. KOReader: check the project docs for container support.