Paperless-ngx vs Readest
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 Paperless-ngx with
choose an app… Free Programming Books AppFlowy Joplin Jellyfin SiYuan qBittorrent Trilium Notes Khoj SRS KOReader Koodo Reader Calibre Notable Navidrome Kodi Obsidian Ebook2audiobook Calibre-Web Koel Jackett Beets DeDRM Tools PeerTube Transmission Sonarr Notesnook MeTube VNote Kavita Laverna Ladder Wikidpad Notes Reor nb Notes Suwayomi-Server OPDS-PSE Reader Hub Sigil Open Library Komga Calibre-Web Automated Libation Markor Sync QOwnNotes PDF Arranger pdf2htmlEX Librum TagSpaces Papra 13ft Mindforger Web CherryTree Calibre-Web Automated Book Downloader Readarr Archivy Flatnotes LANraragi Dnote 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 Papermerge Upvote RSS Buchhaltung Books BicBucStriim Tranga Tinyfeed EpubPress KOHighlights PDFKeeper Booksonic-Air ProsePub Manga-Tagger Atsumeru Evergreen Kthoom COPS dir2opds RERO ILS MangAdventure MyMangaDB Readflow Inkheart Petrolette Ubooquity Vore
Compare Readest with
choose an app… Free Programming Books Jellyfin qBittorrent SRS KOReader Koodo Reader Calibre Navidrome Kodi Ebook2audiobook Calibre-Web 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 Paperless-ngx Readest Category E-books & Media Library E-books & Media Library License GPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0 Language Python TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 2,048 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 44,077 ★ 23,192 First released 2022 2024 Replaces Evernote, DEVONthink Kindle, Apple Books
Why pick each one
Choose Readest if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 23.2k GitHub stars Written in TypeScript Readest details
Frequently asked questions Is Paperless-ngx or Readest better? Neither is universally better. Paperless-ngx has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Paperless-ngx and Readest free and open-source? Yes. Paperless-ngx is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Readest under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Paperless-ngx and Readest with Docker? Paperless-ngx: yes. Readest: yes.