There are many great free and open-source alternatives to closed source and/or paid book libraries. This project aims to track and compare the feature set between the many different options with a focus on 'Gratis' (free as in free beer) open source photo libraries. 'Libre' (free as in free speech) projects are also welcome, but will likely need to be submitted via a pull request since the time in testing each different project is significant.
Warning
This repository displays both objective and subjective measures of feature quality.
⭐ = Full support (10/10 score)
✅ = Feature exists in at least a limited fashion
🚧 = Feature may exist but may not be practical or officially released
💰 = paid feature (even if partial or optional)
❔ = Unknown information (help needed!)
❌ = Feature does not yet exist
💀 = Not planned (no PRs accepted / unlikely to be implemented)
#️⃣ = Subjective measure of feature quality (on scale of 0-10)
Tip
Hover over emoji for additional information (🔗 link to related issue, 🔑 demo credentials, etc)
| Feature | Calibre | Calibre Web | Komga | Kavita | Stump | Calibre Web Automated | Booklore |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Logo |  |
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| Docker Pulls |  |
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| Contributors |  |
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| Last Commit |  |
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| Source Language |  |
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| License |  |
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| Demo | ❌ | ❌ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ❌ | ❌ | ⭐ |
| Freeness | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | 💰 | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ |
| Mobile Upload | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | 💀 | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Web App | ✅ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ✅ | ⭐ | ⭐ |
| Android App | ❌ | 🚧 | ✅ | ❌ | 🚧 | 🚧 | 🚧 |
| iOS App | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | 🚧 | ❌ | 🚧 |
| Desktop App | ⭐ | ❌ | ⭐ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Annotations | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | 🚧 | ❌ | ✅ |
| OPDS Support | ✅ | ✅ | ⭐ | ✅ | ⭐ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Reading Progress Sync | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Existing Folders | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Shelfs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sharing | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Search | ⭐ | ⭐ | ⭐ | ✅ | ✅ | ⭐ | ⭐ |
| Full Text Search | ✅8️⃣ | 🚧 | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | 🚧 | 💀 |
| Duplicate Handling | ⭐ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| User Defined Tags | ⭐ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Docker Installation | ✅5️⃣ | ✅5️⃣ | ⭐ | ✅8️⃣ | ✅6️⃣ | ⭐ | ⭐ |
| Basic Editing | ⭐ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multiple User Support | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Authentication Providers | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | 🚧 | ✅ | ✅ |
Note
This list is not exhaustive and is provided on a best-effort basis. No guarantees are made about its accuracy or completeness. If you find an error or omission, please report it and submit a fix when possible.
- Calibre unlikely to be implemented fuzzy search: Bug #2139316
- Booklore Full Text Search is not planned: Issue 1793
- Komga iOS App is a third party app called Komic with paid features.
- Freeness: Only if all features are free without payment or subscription.
- Demo: Only if provide a public demo with no registration required.
- OPDS: Only if support OPDS stable v1.2 and draft v2.
- Search: Only if support search by title, author, description and tags.
- Full Text Search: Only if support full text search and fuzzy search.
- Docker installation: Only if have an official docker image and is provided in docker hub and ghcr.io for the stable release.
- Duplicate Handling: Only if support duplicate detection and merging.
- Android/iOS/Desktop/Web App: Only if have an official app with support to reading without leaving the app.
Important
To help reduce bias, subjective scores are only assigned after the scoring methodology for that row has been defined.
A simple way to reward apps that focus on the most fundamental user experience: reading smoothly, resuming where you left off, and finding content quickly, all within the same app.
All need to happen in same app and be free of charge:
- Be able to open an ebook navegate to any page, close, open again and return to the same page.
- Be able to open a comic cbz in streaming fashion.
- Be able to highlight text inside an ebook and keep synced at user level.
- Be able to search inside an open ebook and pdf.
- Be able to search for a word in all ebooks and pdfs in the library.
TBA when one application passes level 1.
Caution
Please review the data carefully. GitHub stars and other popularity signals can be manipulated, so treat rankings and perceived traction as potentially unreliable and prioritize verifiable features and documentation.
Sources:
- Start history: January of 2026
- Wired: The GitHub Black Market That Helps Coders Cheat the Popularity Contest
- arxiv.org: Six Million (Suspected) Fake Stars in GitHub
Contributions are welcome. Please see CONTRIBUTE.md for details.
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