8 mo. ago • 100%

How are you hosting your ebooks?

I assumed everyone was using Calibre, but recent searches suggest that isn't always the case

26 comments

Honest question. Why host them? Finishing one book can take a while and they are incredibly small.

I just use calibre and sync with my e reader and phone occasionally.

12
- For me (I use Kavita) it’s because I want to be able to just pick up whatever device is in front of me at the moment and pick up the book where I last left off even if it was on another device
  
  4
  
  Syncing progress seems like a very good reason for hosting. I didn't think of that.
  
  Thanks!
  
  3
- Because I have a really cool library and it should all be kept in a centralised place
  
  2
- Download whenever I feel like it. Share them.
  
  2
- I do the same thing. I’ve tried Kavita and Audiobookshelf and ended up just keeping the books on a network share and then accessing them through Calibre. I am sideloading to a Kindle though.
  
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  You can use calibre-web to send to your Kindle email. They will appear in the Kindle as "Documents"
  
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I'm using Calibre-Web

11
- This is the right answer. I have dockerized Calibre and Calibre-Web for initial intake, then use Calibre-Web's OPDS feed with my Moon+ Android app for reading on my tablet/phone.
  
  Calibre handles type conversions, metadata sync, and file organization.
  
  Calibre-Web works well for browser reading on my PC.
  
  4
- Same here. My Kobo Libre 2 syncs with it over Wifi. It's nice.
  
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https://www.audiobookshelf.org/

8
- Does it work for ePUBs too or just audio books?
  
  1
  
  Yup. It's got built in browser based text reader and an audio player.
  
  FYI, readarr needs separate instances for audio and text. Wasn't worth the hassle for me
  
  3
I use Kavita and KavitaEmail to organize and have a frontend for my books, and the latter to email them to my kindle if it's not on there yet. My kavita container is stopped most of the time because I already know what I'm going to read next and just need it up to sync or send new books.

Used to just have my library I exported from Amazon and ebooks com on a single folder on my NAS, kavita helped clean it up a bit.

I also tried audiobookshelf but mostly for audiobooks and podcasts and didnt quite fit my workflow I already had and liked using kavita and Antennapod.

5
Calibre for my Kobo, Librera FD on my phone.

3
I tried Kavita but it didn't have the features I needed. I ended up just throwing them on Nextcloud and using Nextcloud sync onto my reader (Box Air 3c)

2
- What features did you need?
  
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I am using Calibre-Web mostly - but I have run into issues with thumbnail generation after my collection hit around 500000 books. I am just over 600000 now, but a large swathe don't have thumbnails unless I do a manual metadata search. I should probably look for an alternative, but at this point I CBF.

2
- Over half a million books? I'm so envious!
  
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I'm just here to lurk and see what others say, as I've used Calibre in the past and it didn't really do the job I was hoping it would.

2
- Same. My organization scheme heavily relies on calibres custom columns and export schemas though so it would be hard for me to switch anyway.
  
  The only 2 things I dislike about calibre are the lack of a server based version and the inability to assign a book to multiple series
  
  2
- Yeah, I just want something that looks good, can link works by authors and shared universes and can sync reading progress across devices.
  
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Jellyfin lol

1
- Why lol? The library interface is great and it can manage multiple users. I haven't used it for book hosting, but I am trying to keep an eye out
  
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  I know, it's just the fact that I use it for pretty much all of my media that I find kinda funny. Goes to show, it's really an amazing program tho.
  
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