Kavita vs Sigil
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 Kavita with
choose an app… Free Programming Books Jellyfin Paperless-ngx qBittorrent SRS KOReader Koodo Reader Calibre Readest Navidrome Kodi Ebook2audiobook Calibre-Web Koel Jackett Beets DeDRM Tools PeerTube Transmission Sonarr MeTube Ladder Wikidpad Notes Suwayomi-Server OPDS-PSE Reader Hub 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
Compare Sigil with
choose an app… Free Programming Books Paperless-ngx KOReader Koodo Reader Calibre Readest Ebook2audiobook Calibre-Web DeDRM Tools Ladder Wikidpad Notes Suwayomi-Server OPDS-PSE Reader Hub Open Library Komga Calibre-Web Automated Libation PDF Arranger pdf2htmlEX Librum Papra 13ft Calibre-Web Automated Book Downloader Readarr
Feature Kavita Sigil Category E-books & Media Library E-books & Media Library License GPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language C# C++ Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker bare-metal, binary GitHub stars ★ 11,431 ★ 6,913 First released 2021 2009 Replaces Kindle, ComiXology Adobe InDesign EPUB export
Why pick each one
Choose Kavita if… Great mixed-media support Fast and modern Active development Kavita details Choose Sigil if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly Mature project with 6.9k GitHub stars Written in C++ Sigil details
Frequently asked questions Is Kavita or Sigil better? Neither is universally better. Kavita has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Kavita and Sigil free and open-source? Yes. Kavita is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Sigil under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Kavita and Sigil with Docker? Kavita: yes. Sigil: check the project docs for container support.