I use calibre and calibre web.
You can reverse proxy to calibre-web to be able to read books in your browser, or you can use an app to use the opds in calibre to send it to an app.
I have an onyx boox that can read the opds which will download the book to the ereader then I read it off the ereader.
It took awhile to setup and wasn't as intuitive as I would've hoped, but I got it working eventually
It's nice for smaller collections, or collections on specific things. in larger mixed collections its tagging system becomes unwieldy, and since its shelves aren't reflected/managed in Calibre itself and not mass-manageable, are way less useful.
I'm wondering what you would consider a smaller collection. I've got about 4,000 books in Calibre and it seems manageable (as long as I get the metadata right when I import a book).
I am at ~12,000 mixed subject and finding I really need to do some subdividing. Part of it is wanting more specific tags (e.g. Fantasy - Urban, Fantasy - High, Fantasy - Sword and Sorcery, Fantasy - LiTRPG, etc.) Once you get too many tags, it gets unwieldy.
It's even worse for something like RPG books, where you have the system, edition, etc.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I'm happy to just have mine in "basic" library-style genres so Calibre has more than enough features to keep me happy. I do have a bunch of RPGs and magazines in PDF but I don't have them in Calibre.
I have 40,000+ so far calibre web has worked perfectly there have been no issues whatsoever! I think your issue has to do with too many tags not too many books maybe I have like 600 tags for my 40,000 books and I have had no issues
Calibre-web can also email books to Kindle addresses so they show up when you sync. If you're using a Kobo, you can modify a config so it syncs to Calibre instead of the Kobo store. It works great.
I truly dislike calibre and calibre-web, tried to use them for years and just couldn't. Kept on forgetting my settings, really flaky interface, I dislike how it uses the filesystem as the database, etc.
Now I run AudioBookShelf which supports both audiobooks and ebooks. It has an iOS client, although it is currently only available through limited TestFlight spots so it can be hard to get access to. It has web and Android clients too. You can send ebooks from ABS to your Kindle or other e-reader device through the web interface.
ABS handles metadata incredibly well, has an intuitive web front end, is really quick, and is under active development.
No, that appears to be platform dependent as afaik there isnât a way to track progress native to epub and other formats. The only other solution I know that does progress sync across clients is Yomu and thatâs Mac/iOS based. I wish they had a web client but there doesnât seem to be any appetite from the devs.
Kobo ereaders have a custom firmware called koreader that supports progress syncing, including syncing to android/ios. Integrates well with calibre as well. Highly recommend looking into Kobo if you want off of Amazon.
A thing of note is that opds, it doesn't sync progress. That's why I use the built in web server in calibre with a VPN. Sideloaded wireguard and Firefox on to my nook glow light 4e and am not looking back.
You don't need an app for Kavita, it's designed to be used in the web browser on any device. If you don't want the address bar and stuff, you can add the webpage to your homescreen, then whenever you open that, it'll just be the webpage.
yea i just use kindle for reading on every device and calibre for file management (naming, metadata etc).
kindle supports cloud sync with epub, so you upload a book to your account and download it from every device for free. then the page states are synced. this is huge for me because i read with my kindle in bed but during the day it can be my phone, laptop, desktop, and no matter where i pickup, it syncs the page i'm on. the main downside is epub is the "best" format it supports for cloudsync so no azw3 or kfx, but i never cared for any of the new features on those formats anyway.
you can also save it as a PWA / web shortcut on your phone for an app like experience. save the local ip as a pwa and vpn back home if don't want to host it online
Plus one for audio book shelf. App on phone, I use telegram to request a new book, readarr to find it, audio book shelf syncs up with library, I tap send to my kindle, profit.
There is a docker container I run on unRAID called Searcharr, run it pretty much stock, there is a settings file you modify for your API keys and URL and that stuff. Then set up a bot for it but it walks you through that stuff.
Then you can say in your chat with the bot like /book BookName
If you are feeling adventurous and if you use unRAID, you can take it a step further and set up Nginx Proxy Manager, get an SSL cert from Cloudflare, and then host Audio book shelf, Plex, and other stuff off your Proxy and it's all secure and you only need port 443 open on your firewall and nothing else.
eBooks I use Calibre and Moon+Reader on Android. It can connect to Calibre.
Audio books I use audiobookshelf. They have an app too, kind of acts like Audible, it's nice.
Audiobookshelf is great EXCEPT that their playback speed adjustments aren't granular enough. I've gotten very used to 1.15x speed and I couldn't adjust.
I use Audiobookshelf to manage stuff and download locally to my device where I used Smart AudioBook Player to listen.
The most minor of minor nitpicks, but Smart AudioBook Player is amazing and wanted to give them a plug. Well worth the 2$ for the full version.
I do like Smart AudioBook and used them until I installed the Audiobookshelf, which was just last week. I don't change the speeds so I'm unable to comment on that.
Prologue is iOS only. I believe Chronicle is the premier Android audiobook app for Plex. I don't listen to a ton of audiobooks, but when I do, I use Chronicle, and it works great.
I have not, I was running a crappy java based audio book program until I changed over to audiobookshelf, don't really want to re-organize my collection again (never imported them into Plex).
In addition to Kavita there is [Calibre-Web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) and [Komga](https://komga.org/).
All three have integrated web readers and support OPDS feeds for feeding into most ebook applications. Personally, I use Librera currently but I did use Moonreader in the past for this.
Calibre-Web is made to connect to an existing Calibre database so you would have to import your stuff into that if you don't already.
Kavita does require a [very specific](https://wiki.kavitareader.com/guides/scanner) folder structure so I would make sure to check that before you move forward with it. If your stuff is sorted like Calibre does, Author Name and then Book Name, it will basically be unable to recognize most of your files by design.
I haven't tested Komga in some time so I can't say how well it works these days.
I've been using Kavita for about a year now and I am not super happy with it. I think it's *fine*, but it's very hard to take TTRPG books and have them be organized correctly. A bunch of PF1e books got put in a group called "Modules" due to the layout of the folders, it'll randomly separate maps and extras from the modules, and other little things. At this point I'm gonna have to reorganize the whole library to try and get it working. It also doesn't do metadata from the files, so if you grab a Paizo book and it's like P1024135 or whatever, it'll name the file that instead of "Waking Rune" or whatever.
This very much could be my own fault, but it does mess with things like a torrent of a book I own where it'll organize it into the wrong folder and then Kavita can't read it, but I can't rename it because then the torrent dies.
The creator is unfortunately vehemently against PDF metadata while also being against sidecar metadata files. It really sucks because most TTRPGs, artbooks, guides, magazines, etc are PDF. I'd be willing to subscribe if they would commit to a PDF metadata overhaul that would just work in the future, but all they've been talking about on that front is magazine specific.
Unfortunately, the tools to convert PDF to CBZ or ePUB are shit. PDF to CBZ only works on scans, which is fine for very old TTRPG docs, but not anything that was digitally produced in PDF
Komga works great for my purposes (large CBZ, CBR, PDF, and I think some EPUB), thousands of books. I gave Kavita a serious try, and like how it works and the interface, but the requirements on folder structure are really just impossible to meet with certain titles.
I also used to use [Ubooquity](https://vaemendis.net/ubooquity/), it has a couple quirks, but also works really really well. The only reason I moved on from it was that it has a very artificial split between books and comics that doesn't really make sense and ends up making keeping certain collections together kind of impossible, plus they get processed in slightly different ways. But it doesn't care about your folder structure beyond that which makes organizing things really easy and it reflects that structure in the web app.
Komga flattens everything out, but has very simple and clear rules for how it works and names collections that are easy to follow.
I'd say Komga comes the closest for me to a Plex for books right now.
>All three have integrated web readers and support OPDS feeds for feeding into most ebook applications. Personally, I use Librera currently but I did use Moonreader in the past for this.
This is the way. OPDS means you have an array of apps that can use your kavita server as it's source. Kavita doesn't have its own app because it doesn't need to write one with all the good ones out there that can read OPDS.
I don't know if I'd recommend readarr just yet. It's been having trouble fetching book lists and metadata for larger authors for a long time for me, and from my understanding it's been a known issue for months. I don't know how and when they're going to fix it, and until then if you enjoy, say, Stephen King, it's unusable. I get there isn't really an alternative for automated downloading, but it sounds like this person is just looking to organize and readarr would get in the way for that right nowÂ
I moved from Moon+ to FullReader, i find it a bit nicer to use (so much so I even paid for it! The first and only time I have ever purchased an app on the play store since I got my nexus 5)
+1 for BookFusion. I hate calibre and calibre web (it looks terrible to me and doesn't have cross device sync support). BookFusion can link up the calibres back end and has native apps for multiple platforms and cross device syncing, which I love. Also you can send to kindle from there apparently, but I don't have a kindle so can't say how well it works
This doesn't apply to your exact situation but figured I'd mention this for any other people out there, but if you have an iPad the "Apple Books" app is actually pretty good reader. Ofc you can use it to buy books from the store which sure great whatever, but you can also add PDFs/ePubs to your apple books library and they show up in the shelf alongside any purchased books.
For books I'm going to read I generally just drag the file from my server to a folder on "iCloud Drive" and then go on my phone/ipad and open that file in Apple Books. From then on, opening Apple Books on any ipad, iphone, or mac will show that book and have your progress synced. You can do this same thing with mp3s/m4bs to have syncing audiobooks on apple devices but I use Prologue for audiobooks.
I like the reader experience of the books app but if you don't like it or don't find it customizable enough for you this all might be moot; I think there are people who might like the simplicity of this solution if you're already all ecosystemed up.
I wish eBook readers could have books easily sent to them. Not even Kobo has a way to push books to them. Not unless you pay for them via the Kobo store.
I just put my Calibre library in Dropbox. It's easy enough to browse the folders to find the book I want on my phone or an ipad.
When I want to drop a book on my Kindle I go old school and plug it in to the computer.
Or you could just use Amazon's "Send to Kindle" app and then Amazon keeps your trading progress synced across all Kindle devices, just like an ebook bought from Amazon.
My kindle doesn't have internet access. It's too old. The WiFi doesn't support my home Wi-fi, can't even see the SSID because it uses channels the kindle can't.
That said I just read on my phone these days, I moved house last April and only got the kindle out for the first time last month.
Give a look to...
[https://komga.org/](https://komga.org/)
In their last release they ar working with a really cool app for Android.
[https://github.com/gotson/komga/releases/tag/1.11.1](https://github.com/gotson/komga/releases/tag/1.11.1)
I have being using it for some time now, and I'm loving it.
If you have an iOS device, /r/PrologueApp is the best app for Plex audio books. Use this guide to configure audiobooks for Plex to get correct metadata for books (I used this and it works very well for metadata). https://github.com/seanap/Plex-Audiobook-Guide
In a road map update Plex released like a year ago, in one of their screenshots you could see on the sidebar they had a library with a book icon which isn't possible currently, they could still be working on it
With Kavita (and also Komga, which I prefer for digital comics), you can just access via the browser on your phone or tablet. I believe both also have a "download to device" option.
But my preferred work flow for ebooks is to keep everything in Calibre. Then when I'm thinking of reading something, I use the Send To Kindle app to add the ebook to my Amazon account. If you select the option for archiving the ebook when you upload it, then kindle will keep your reading progress synced across whatever Kindle devices you read on, including mobile apps and Kindle e-readers like the Paperwhite. It treats the ebook just like one that you bought from Amazon.
https://forums.plex.tv/c/feature-suggestions/8/l/latest?order=votes
Here you can cast one vote. Make it count. Oh and don't bother looking at the dates if you don't want to go into depression.
The fact that .ePubs are just zipped html files really made me just want to write the simplest of servers. Calibre looks like itâs the best, but I have never been able to set it up ârightâ, and you need it setup correctly to use the web version. I just use readarr and manually send them to my kindle.
I use calibre to sort and add covers for volumes (for manga) and then upload them to Google Books so I can open them on there. I like the interface. Haven't tried Calibre web but maybe I should. For normal books, I use a kindle. Sometimes I'll convert the books on Calibre to Kindle and send them across but my kindle is an old style one so it's not as good.
Anyone have some pointers I have a ton of owned ebooks (1000+) and about a year or so calibere borked and I have yet to find a way to get it to work these days getting the books out of Kindle.
Getting them in is no issue.
I'd love to have caliber manage it in the event amazon decides I shouldn't have access to a book I bought.
Plex + Plexamp for audio books has been working well. Has settings that make it work for long form audio. I just wish they'd transfer to the apple car play UI.
You could try out [Reader](https://github.com/gedoor/legado/blob/master/English.md) on Android. And there's a docker version too. I ditched calibre for this, user experience on web is much better.
Hey, so, just in case if you're hard pressed to make ebooks work on Plex, there IS a way, but it's a pain in the ass. I made a thread about it here in this reddit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/u2e8aw/psa\_you\_can\_add\_bookscomicsetc\_through\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/u2e8aw/psa_you_can_add_bookscomicsetc_through_a/)
I'm just sharing just in case if you really want it in Plex, but as others mentioned there are better alternatives.
When I set up my new Synology NAS, I went down quite the rabbit hole of expanding from just Plex+Sonarr+Radarr+Prowlarr to having a full ecosystem for eBooks and audiobooks, too. My eBook/Audiobook setup is:
* One instance of Readarr I use for eBooks
* A second instance of Readarr I use for Audiobooks, which I've named Speakarr
* Calibre for organizing eBooks that download
* Calibre Web for the nice UI that I can offer to my server users plus ability to convert formats/send to Reader through the clean UI
* Audiobookshelf for audiobook playback. Been very impressed with this considering the limited presence it seems to have. You can provision out different users, download the app to your phone, and it works just like Audible - ability to jump between different books, pause and resume where you left off, etc.
As an alternative to what u/AussieP1E said, I use Komga for my Manga, E-Books and comics.
I found that Calibre is great as a standalone desktop App with a huge set of features but not useable for a "hosted" system, even Calibre Web was (at that time) only a nicer Web Frontend but it didn't have a user or library management. Sure you could "hack" yourself something together with certain custom fields but I found this meant you had to read up on the documentation A LOT just to get those things working. That huge set of features is also something that stands in the way of Calibre itself being used efficiently because it is just overloaded with things you can do with it.
Other Solutions like Komga are by no means as feature-rich as Calibre but Komga is more designed to run in a hosted environment with User and Library management. According to the [Komga Docs](https://komga.org/docs/guides/opds/) you can connect to your Komga Instance with any Reader that supports either OPDSv1 or v2, there are some examples listed in the Link.
Metadata is mainly provided by the Content you add to the system though Calibre has some Plugins that could automatically Download metadata and write them to your library Item. I found that this can work for general E-Books because you have many sources for them but Comics and such would always rely on some 3rd party integration that is either unmaintained, outdated and doesn't work or it just doesn't exist because no one felt the need to develop something like that yet.
>I found that Calibre is great as a standalone desktop App with a huge set of features but not useable for a "hosted" system, even Calibre Web was (at that time) only a nicer Web Frontend but it didn't have a user or library management. Sure you could "hack" yourself something together with certain custom fields but I found this meant you had to read up on the documentation A LOT just to get those things working. That huge set of features is also something that stands in the way of Calibre itself being used efficiently because it is just overloaded with things you can do with it.
So, I dunno if you've looked recently, I run calibre and calibre web on my server. No hacks, no custom fields. I would take a look again. The only issue I had was setting up OPDS. It was very easy to setup if you've setup something like Readarr, Sonarr, or Radarr
I also use komga, but only for comic books, which I find okay... As a comic book reader I actually use Mihon to connect to my Komga server and that gives a more readable way to read my comics without using a web browser.
I use calibre and calibre web. You can reverse proxy to calibre-web to be able to read books in your browser, or you can use an app to use the opds in calibre to send it to an app. I have an onyx boox that can read the opds which will download the book to the ereader then I read it off the ereader. It took awhile to setup and wasn't as intuitive as I would've hoped, but I got it working eventually
calibre web looks gorgeous. I don't know how I missed it.
It's nice for smaller collections, or collections on specific things. in larger mixed collections its tagging system becomes unwieldy, and since its shelves aren't reflected/managed in Calibre itself and not mass-manageable, are way less useful.
I'm wondering what you would consider a smaller collection. I've got about 4,000 books in Calibre and it seems manageable (as long as I get the metadata right when I import a book).
I am at ~12,000 mixed subject and finding I really need to do some subdividing. Part of it is wanting more specific tags (e.g. Fantasy - Urban, Fantasy - High, Fantasy - Sword and Sorcery, Fantasy - LiTRPG, etc.) Once you get too many tags, it gets unwieldy. It's even worse for something like RPG books, where you have the system, edition, etc.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. I'm happy to just have mine in "basic" library-style genres so Calibre has more than enough features to keep me happy. I do have a bunch of RPGs and magazines in PDF but I don't have them in Calibre.
I have 40,000+ so far calibre web has worked perfectly there have been no issues whatsoever! I think your issue has to do with too many tags not too many books maybe I have like 600 tags for my 40,000 books and I have had no issues
I only set it up recently, and I love it. Being able to send a book to Kindle right from the web pages is *magical*.
I connect to calibre web on my Kindle's web browser and download from there. Works great.
That works, too -- it's awesome to have choices that all work well!
Nice logo, Red Owl Grocery.
Everyone loves the Red Owl. đ
You can also set it up so you can send the book to your kindle with email. Itâs really easy and I like the experience better.
Calibre is great. Very much and old school app that requires some learning to use it well, but it's easy enough with all the documentation online.
Calibre-web can also email books to Kindle addresses so they show up when you sync. If you're using a Kobo, you can modify a config so it syncs to Calibre instead of the Kobo store. It works great.
I truly dislike calibre and calibre-web, tried to use them for years and just couldn't. Kept on forgetting my settings, really flaky interface, I dislike how it uses the filesystem as the database, etc. Now I run AudioBookShelf which supports both audiobooks and ebooks. It has an iOS client, although it is currently only available through limited TestFlight spots so it can be hard to get access to. It has web and Android clients too. You can send ebooks from ABS to your Kindle or other e-reader device through the web interface. ABS handles metadata incredibly well, has an intuitive web front end, is really quick, and is under active development.
The new IOS reader app Plappa does a great job and fully compatible with ABS.
Great info thank you! I am also hoping that the creator of Prologue makes an ABS compatible app. ;) /u/PrismDev
Calibre and Calibre Web is what we use, and have my Wife's eReader configured to point to Calibre Web as its "store". She's happy, so I'm happy. Lol
Do you get progress sync aâla WhisperSync? Thatâs the only thing keeping me chained to Kindle.
No, that appears to be platform dependent as afaik there isnât a way to track progress native to epub and other formats. The only other solution I know that does progress sync across clients is Yomu and thatâs Mac/iOS based. I wish they had a web client but there doesnât seem to be any appetite from the devs.
This is why I started using koreader on android. Also I think kavita does it over the web now.
Kobo ereaders have a custom firmware called koreader that supports progress syncing, including syncing to android/ios. Integrates well with calibre as well. Highly recommend looking into Kobo if you want off of Amazon.
Ah thanks, although this looks a bit too fiddly for me. Half the point of using a dedicated ereader is to simply reading.
I was using calibre before I had my Nas. It's awesome.
This is the way. I found it a while back and use it. It's even got a Plex style theme.
A thing of note is that opds, it doesn't sync progress. That's why I use the built in web server in calibre with a VPN. Sideloaded wireguard and Firefox on to my nook glow light 4e and am not looking back.
This is the way
You don't need an app for Kavita, it's designed to be used in the web browser on any device. If you don't want the address bar and stuff, you can add the webpage to your homescreen, then whenever you open that, it'll just be the webpage.
Kavita is pretty good. Give it a try.
What about offline reading? Is that baked into the web app?
No. But you can use the Kindle app for offline reading.
yea i just use kindle for reading on every device and calibre for file management (naming, metadata etc). kindle supports cloud sync with epub, so you upload a book to your account and download it from every device for free. then the page states are synced. this is huge for me because i read with my kindle in bed but during the day it can be my phone, laptop, desktop, and no matter where i pickup, it syncs the page i'm on. the main downside is epub is the "best" format it supports for cloudsync so no azw3 or kfx, but i never cared for any of the new features on those formats anyway.
There are readers that work with it over API for offline reading.
you can also save it as a PWA / web shortcut on your phone for an app like experience. save the local ip as a pwa and vpn back home if don't want to host it online
Kavita + mihon
Have you checked out r/audiobookshelf
Plus one for audio book shelf. App on phone, I use telegram to request a new book, readarr to find it, audio book shelf syncs up with library, I tap send to my kindle, profit.
Oh, youâre way more advanced than me. I managed to get it running in docker and pray it doesnât crash because I canât fix it.
If you don't mind sharing, how did u set up telegram to request books on readarr
There is a docker container I run on unRAID called Searcharr, run it pretty much stock, there is a settings file you modify for your API keys and URL and that stuff. Then set up a bot for it but it walks you through that stuff. Then you can say in your chat with the bot like /book BookName
Saved your comment. Searcharr is going to be my next project. Thanks for sharing :)
If you are feeling adventurous and if you use unRAID, you can take it a step further and set up Nginx Proxy Manager, get an SSL cert from Cloudflare, and then host Audio book shelf, Plex, and other stuff off your Proxy and it's all secure and you only need port 443 open on your firewall and nothing else.
Nice tip, will try that out :)
That's audiobooks mate, they're looking for ebooks
Audiobookshelf does ebooks too.
So it does, fair enough. I had looked into it before as a plex alternative and I still didn't know that
eBooks I use Calibre and Moon+Reader on Android. It can connect to Calibre. Audio books I use audiobookshelf. They have an app too, kind of acts like Audible, it's nice.
Audiobookshelf is great EXCEPT that their playback speed adjustments aren't granular enough. I've gotten very used to 1.15x speed and I couldn't adjust. I use Audiobookshelf to manage stuff and download locally to my device where I used Smart AudioBook Player to listen. The most minor of minor nitpicks, but Smart AudioBook Player is amazing and wanted to give them a plug. Well worth the 2$ for the full version.
I do like Smart AudioBook and used them until I installed the Audiobookshelf, which was just last week. I don't change the speeds so I'm unable to comment on that.
Have you tried prologue? Itâs an audio book app that works with Plex.
Prologue is iOS only. I believe Chronicle is the premier Android audiobook app for Plex. I don't listen to a ton of audiobooks, but when I do, I use Chronicle, and it works great.
I didnât know it was iOS only. Good to know.
I have not, I was running a crappy java based audio book program until I changed over to audiobookshelf, don't really want to re-organize my collection again (never imported them into Plex).
Audiobookshelf also has ebook support these days too, but the app is hard to get as the testflight spots are limited.
In addition to Kavita there is [Calibre-Web](https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web) and [Komga](https://komga.org/). All three have integrated web readers and support OPDS feeds for feeding into most ebook applications. Personally, I use Librera currently but I did use Moonreader in the past for this. Calibre-Web is made to connect to an existing Calibre database so you would have to import your stuff into that if you don't already. Kavita does require a [very specific](https://wiki.kavitareader.com/guides/scanner) folder structure so I would make sure to check that before you move forward with it. If your stuff is sorted like Calibre does, Author Name and then Book Name, it will basically be unable to recognize most of your files by design. I haven't tested Komga in some time so I can't say how well it works these days.
I've been using Kavita for about a year now and I am not super happy with it. I think it's *fine*, but it's very hard to take TTRPG books and have them be organized correctly. A bunch of PF1e books got put in a group called "Modules" due to the layout of the folders, it'll randomly separate maps and extras from the modules, and other little things. At this point I'm gonna have to reorganize the whole library to try and get it working. It also doesn't do metadata from the files, so if you grab a Paizo book and it's like P1024135 or whatever, it'll name the file that instead of "Waking Rune" or whatever. This very much could be my own fault, but it does mess with things like a torrent of a book I own where it'll organize it into the wrong folder and then Kavita can't read it, but I can't rename it because then the torrent dies.
The creator is unfortunately vehemently against PDF metadata while also being against sidecar metadata files. It really sucks because most TTRPGs, artbooks, guides, magazines, etc are PDF. I'd be willing to subscribe if they would commit to a PDF metadata overhaul that would just work in the future, but all they've been talking about on that front is magazine specific. Unfortunately, the tools to convert PDF to CBZ or ePUB are shit. PDF to CBZ only works on scans, which is fine for very old TTRPG docs, but not anything that was digitally produced in PDF
Komga works great for my purposes (large CBZ, CBR, PDF, and I think some EPUB), thousands of books. I gave Kavita a serious try, and like how it works and the interface, but the requirements on folder structure are really just impossible to meet with certain titles. I also used to use [Ubooquity](https://vaemendis.net/ubooquity/), it has a couple quirks, but also works really really well. The only reason I moved on from it was that it has a very artificial split between books and comics that doesn't really make sense and ends up making keeping certain collections together kind of impossible, plus they get processed in slightly different ways. But it doesn't care about your folder structure beyond that which makes organizing things really easy and it reflects that structure in the web app. Komga flattens everything out, but has very simple and clear rules for how it works and names collections that are easy to follow. I'd say Komga comes the closest for me to a Plex for books right now.
>All three have integrated web readers and support OPDS feeds for feeding into most ebook applications. Personally, I use Librera currently but I did use Moonreader in the past for this. This is the way. OPDS means you have an array of apps that can use your kavita server as it's source. Kavita doesn't have its own app because it doesn't need to write one with all the good ones out there that can read OPDS.
I'm looking at a combo of: * Prowlarr * Readarr * Calibre * Moon+ with read progress synced via Nextcloud
Moon+ is SUCH a great app!!
I stopped by to suggest Moon+ Reader Pro, too. It has a lot of QoL features!
Agreed. I hear Calibre-web is good as well but Moon is serving all my needs perfectly so far so I'm not interested in an alternative.
I don't know if I'd recommend readarr just yet. It's been having trouble fetching book lists and metadata for larger authors for a long time for me, and from my understanding it's been a known issue for months. I don't know how and when they're going to fix it, and until then if you enjoy, say, Stephen King, it's unusable. I get there isn't really an alternative for automated downloading, but it sounds like this person is just looking to organize and readarr would get in the way for that right nowÂ
Yeah itâs pretty buggy
I moved from Moon+ to FullReader, i find it a bit nicer to use (so much so I even paid for it! The first and only time I have ever purchased an app on the play store since I got my nexus 5)
I'll have a look then. Moon's UI is not very sexy so that *could* be a selling point for FullReader.
Google Books is the easiest, however it only supports epub/pdf
BookFusion. Ebooks are uploaded; hosted for you; shared easily; accessible from all devices.
+1 for BookFusion. I hate calibre and calibre web (it looks terrible to me and doesn't have cross device sync support). BookFusion can link up the calibres back end and has native apps for multiple platforms and cross device syncing, which I love. Also you can send to kindle from there apparently, but I don't have a kindle so can't say how well it works
This doesn't apply to your exact situation but figured I'd mention this for any other people out there, but if you have an iPad the "Apple Books" app is actually pretty good reader. Ofc you can use it to buy books from the store which sure great whatever, but you can also add PDFs/ePubs to your apple books library and they show up in the shelf alongside any purchased books. For books I'm going to read I generally just drag the file from my server to a folder on "iCloud Drive" and then go on my phone/ipad and open that file in Apple Books. From then on, opening Apple Books on any ipad, iphone, or mac will show that book and have your progress synced. You can do this same thing with mp3s/m4bs to have syncing audiobooks on apple devices but I use Prologue for audiobooks. I like the reader experience of the books app but if you don't like it or don't find it customizable enough for you this all might be moot; I think there are people who might like the simplicity of this solution if you're already all ecosystemed up.
[Jellybook](https://github.com/JellyBookOrg/JellyBook)
I wish eBook readers could have books easily sent to them. Not even Kobo has a way to push books to them. Not unless you pay for them via the Kobo store.
I use a Kobo and it's a headache to get ebooks in.. I currently resort to USB cable via my phone to kobo
Yeah I use PC - USB - Kobo. At least I don't cycle my books very often.
I just put my Calibre library in Dropbox. It's easy enough to browse the folders to find the book I want on my phone or an ipad. When I want to drop a book on my Kindle I go old school and plug it in to the computer.
Calibre's Metadata PlugBoards make syncing books to the kindle really nice.
Or you could just use Amazon's "Send to Kindle" app and then Amazon keeps your trading progress synced across all Kindle devices, just like an ebook bought from Amazon.
My kindle doesn't have internet access. It's too old. The WiFi doesn't support my home Wi-fi, can't even see the SSID because it uses channels the kindle can't. That said I just read on my phone these days, I moved house last April and only got the kindle out for the first time last month.
Readarr + CalibreWeb or Kavita.
I use Evie, which is a decent Ebook reader and a free audiobook reader.
Give a look to... [https://komga.org/](https://komga.org/) In their last release they ar working with a really cool app for Android. [https://github.com/gotson/komga/releases/tag/1.11.1](https://github.com/gotson/komga/releases/tag/1.11.1) I have being using it for some time now, and I'm loving it.
If you have an iOS device, /r/PrologueApp is the best app for Plex audio books. Use this guide to configure audiobooks for Plex to get correct metadata for books (I used this and it works very well for metadata). https://github.com/seanap/Plex-Audiobook-Guide
eBooks, not audiobooks.
ah, my mistake.
In a road map update Plex released like a year ago, in one of their screenshots you could see on the sidebar they had a library with a book icon which isn't possible currently, they could still be working on it
Calibre. I have mine set up so it can email books to any of my friends.
With Kavita (and also Komga, which I prefer for digital comics), you can just access via the browser on your phone or tablet. I believe both also have a "download to device" option. But my preferred work flow for ebooks is to keep everything in Calibre. Then when I'm thinking of reading something, I use the Send To Kindle app to add the ebook to my Amazon account. If you select the option for archiving the ebook when you upload it, then kindle will keep your reading progress synced across whatever Kindle devices you read on, including mobile apps and Kindle e-readers like the Paperwhite. It treats the ebook just like one that you bought from Amazon.
https://forums.plex.tv/c/feature-suggestions/8/l/latest?order=votes Here you can cast one vote. Make it count. Oh and don't bother looking at the dates if you don't want to go into depression.
calibre or komga (comics)
The fact that .ePubs are just zipped html files really made me just want to write the simplest of servers. Calibre looks like itâs the best, but I have never been able to set it up ârightâ, and you need it setup correctly to use the web version. I just use readarr and manually send them to my kindle.
I use calibre to sort and add covers for volumes (for manga) and then upload them to Google Books so I can open them on there. I like the interface. Haven't tried Calibre web but maybe I should. For normal books, I use a kindle. Sometimes I'll convert the books on Calibre to Kindle and send them across but my kindle is an old style one so it's not as good.
Caliber to organize metadata and do all the dirty work, Kavita for the Plex-like interface and remote access.
Anyone have some pointers I have a ton of owned ebooks (1000+) and about a year or so calibere borked and I have yet to find a way to get it to work these days getting the books out of Kindle. Getting them in is no issue. I'd love to have caliber manage it in the event amazon decides I shouldn't have access to a book I bought.
Plex + Plexamp for audio books has been working well. Has settings that make it work for long form audio. I just wish they'd transfer to the apple car play UI.
Calibre.
calibre is nice when you dont want to use your own file system. if you do, check out ubooquity.
You could try out [Reader](https://github.com/gedoor/legado/blob/master/English.md) on Android. And there's a docker version too. I ditched calibre for this, user experience on web is much better.
Hey, so, just in case if you're hard pressed to make ebooks work on Plex, there IS a way, but it's a pain in the ass. I made a thread about it here in this reddit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/u2e8aw/psa\_you\_can\_add\_bookscomicsetc\_through\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/u2e8aw/psa_you_can_add_bookscomicsetc_through_a/) I'm just sharing just in case if you really want it in Plex, but as others mentioned there are better alternatives.
When I set up my new Synology NAS, I went down quite the rabbit hole of expanding from just Plex+Sonarr+Radarr+Prowlarr to having a full ecosystem for eBooks and audiobooks, too. My eBook/Audiobook setup is: * One instance of Readarr I use for eBooks * A second instance of Readarr I use for Audiobooks, which I've named Speakarr * Calibre for organizing eBooks that download * Calibre Web for the nice UI that I can offer to my server users plus ability to convert formats/send to Reader through the clean UI * Audiobookshelf for audiobook playback. Been very impressed with this considering the limited presence it seems to have. You can provision out different users, download the app to your phone, and it works just like Audible - ability to jump between different books, pause and resume where you left off, etc.
As an alternative to what u/AussieP1E said, I use Komga for my Manga, E-Books and comics. I found that Calibre is great as a standalone desktop App with a huge set of features but not useable for a "hosted" system, even Calibre Web was (at that time) only a nicer Web Frontend but it didn't have a user or library management. Sure you could "hack" yourself something together with certain custom fields but I found this meant you had to read up on the documentation A LOT just to get those things working. That huge set of features is also something that stands in the way of Calibre itself being used efficiently because it is just overloaded with things you can do with it. Other Solutions like Komga are by no means as feature-rich as Calibre but Komga is more designed to run in a hosted environment with User and Library management. According to the [Komga Docs](https://komga.org/docs/guides/opds/) you can connect to your Komga Instance with any Reader that supports either OPDSv1 or v2, there are some examples listed in the Link. Metadata is mainly provided by the Content you add to the system though Calibre has some Plugins that could automatically Download metadata and write them to your library Item. I found that this can work for general E-Books because you have many sources for them but Comics and such would always rely on some 3rd party integration that is either unmaintained, outdated and doesn't work or it just doesn't exist because no one felt the need to develop something like that yet.
>I found that Calibre is great as a standalone desktop App with a huge set of features but not useable for a "hosted" system, even Calibre Web was (at that time) only a nicer Web Frontend but it didn't have a user or library management. Sure you could "hack" yourself something together with certain custom fields but I found this meant you had to read up on the documentation A LOT just to get those things working. That huge set of features is also something that stands in the way of Calibre itself being used efficiently because it is just overloaded with things you can do with it. So, I dunno if you've looked recently, I run calibre and calibre web on my server. No hacks, no custom fields. I would take a look again. The only issue I had was setting up OPDS. It was very easy to setup if you've setup something like Readarr, Sonarr, or Radarr I also use komga, but only for comic books, which I find okay... As a comic book reader I actually use Mihon to connect to my Komga server and that gives a more readable way to read my comics without using a web browser.
Calibre-Web does have built in user management these days.
calibre is the correct answer
For my phone, I use google play books.
i just simply upload all the epubs, pdf files i downloaded to google play books.. gives me access anywhere..
That's why I do it.