Keeping in the time honored tradition of always having an update every time I open it.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Selfhosted
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So true. But I can't complain that the software is getting better.
One of the worlds greatest wonders
calibre might be my favorite piece of software ever made. I wish every media format had a calibre equivalent. I have sorted thousands of books and merged so many series into single files because who needs seperate books on an eReader.
As much as i love Reading Books, I also enjoy finishing them. So more single ebooks = more finished books 😄
Nice but 1) doesn't Kobo use DRM? 2) I had thought selfhosted was about server apps. Calibre is great but it's a client app. Should this post be in a different group?
I've heard Kobo is better than the other big players when it comes to interoperability with open formats / self hosted setups.
As for the servers
The main one
https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web
A popular newer one
https://github.com/crocodilestick/Calibre-Web-Automated
Also (to everyone else reading your comment) let's not downvote good faith comments, especially when they're phrased as a question and wanting to learn more
Kobo has a great balance of good hardware, good price, and good openness. It's not perfect on any of those categories, it just strikes a nice middle ground balance to make it an extremely popular ereader for people who require the kind of openness people like us do. There's really nothing locked down about them, they don't do anything in particular to make it easy, but they don't do anything to make it hard either. "koreader" installs very nicely on Kobo devices, and then you just load your books from Calibre (or right through USB if you're hardcore for some reason) and you're basically off to the races.
Another option for some Kobos is Inkbox/QuillOS. It's a full open source OS replacement and is very cool. It was very usable last summer when I tried it out on my Kobo Clara HD and is probably even better now.
you just load your books from Calibre (or right through USB if you’re hardcore for some reason) and you’re basically off to the races.
There's also an OPDS server option with calibre-web that you can use to load books from if you're using koreader.
You can also use the Kobo server replacement option with calibre-web although I personally couldn't get it to work at the time I tried it. But this will give you a sync option that works like the official Kobo server which is quite nice.
I didn't downvote anything fwiw.
I should have specified, people we're downvoting you
But looks like the score is positive again 🙂
Kobo doesn't use DRM; publishers use DRM. If the publisher publishes the eBook without DRM, Kobo sells it to you that way.
EBook stores don't determine whether DRM of employed; only publishers do.
Calibre has a GUI desktop interface, but it can also be run headless and provide a web interface. You can even run Calibre as a desktop app, and connect it to another Calibre running in server mode, and access those books as well.
As a rule, I do not like Python applications. I find them generally pootly maintained over the long term, and prone to breakage because of dependency hell. Calibre is the exception to the rule; it's an absolutely fantastic piece of software. So much so, that I donate to the project.
If the kobo hardware device can read drm'd epubs, it is "using drm" to do so. I'm asking if Calibre can read those same drm epubs. Do you know if it can, maybe by adding a plugin? I know there was something like that for Kindle files. Thanks.
Ah, yes. Kobo does, indeed, support DRM. Calibre does a not. You can still use non-DRM books with both.
Also, it turns out that there is a piece of software that someone built that happens to work with the very excellent Calibre plug-in system which, if you bought the eBook and have the software proof of purchase, will strip out there DRM from books and allow you to read the books with Calibre. I'm not suggesting you do that, because the unethical and corrupt DMCA bought by from crooked politicians by the media industry in 1998 stripped owners of fair use rights which they'd enjoyed until then. But, it's easy to find and trivial to use, and once you have it you tend to forget you installed it.
Calibre doesn’t natively support reading DRMed files, but there are anti-DRM plugins which are trivial to install. You need to provide a legitimate Kindle serial number for Amazon DRM, as it uses that to de-encrypt the files. When you add the file(s) to your library, the plugin automatically runs as a file conversion. It basically converts it from a DRM-locked .epub/.azw3 to a DRM-free .epub/.azw3 instead. Since Calibre already has file conversions built in, the plugin simply uses that existing system to spit out a DRM-free version of the same file, then it adds that to your library instead.
Calibre can also be a server. https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/server. I use it all the time with my library.
Thanks, I didn't know about that. I might try it.
GL! One of my favorite open source projects!
Kobo does not block non-drm. Calibre is used as a server all the time, see calibre-web.
Calibre is used as a server all the time, see calibre-web.
calibre-web is technically not Calibre and is written and maintained by different people, although it does use the Calibre database (and I believe it must be created with desktop Calibre initially). But it's a good option and I highly recommend it.
Correct, my bad
Thanks. What I meant is, if I buy a kobo book off bn.com, can I read it with calibre? Those books usually have drm but maybe calibre can bypass it.
Oh yeah, sorry. There is some vendor lock-in with all bookstores, but kobo looks the other way.
I have calibre-web setup with kobo sync, so calibre-web pretends to be part of the kobo store to my reader and I'm able to add non-drm books to my reader while still using the kobo store if I like.
Thanks yeah I don't have a kobo reader so was asking if there was a way to read paid-for kobo downloaded books that have drm, similar to how decss lets you watch DVDs that you bought. I don't mind paying for books but don't want a locked down reading device with it's own crappy software and possible invasive phoning home.
Calibre cant natively strip DRM from ebooks, but there are third-party plugins for it that can and integrate pretty seamlessly into the process of adding the book to your library.
I used it to strip the DRM from all of my Amazon bought ebooks back before they removed the download option.
All the choices for "ebook stores" and ereader ecosystems are proprietary vendor-locked services with no self-hosting options. While Calibre is primarily a "local" tool it is a true alternative to all these proprietary services and I think it's at least in the spirit of self hosting, if not strictly the letter.
For what it's worth, I self-host a Calibre Portable library on Nextcloud, which enables me to access all my ebooks anywhere, and to upload new ones to my ereader from anywhere, as long as I have access to my Nextcloud. And I also share the same library through Calibre Web for when I don't. I retain control of all my books, I remove all the DRM and convert them to epub. Calibre isn't a hosted service on its own, but it fits nicely into the self-hosting ecosystem, and for that I am grateful.
I would greatly appreciate a bit more detail on your setup, is your calibre library simply a folder synced through next cloud?
Yeah, that's all it is. Calibre Portable. In a folder on Nextcloud.
Calibre can also be a server. And you can still put DRM free books on your Kobo device.
I've been using calibre with my kobo for years. There's a remote server you can set up, but I just haven't been bothered to set it up since my kobo has about 100 books I haven't read yet.
calibre is an app? i just have a docker container with calibre web for all my epub, mobi etc.since bookstack or nextcloud cant handle those. is the client app any good?
Yes I've been using the calibre client app under Debian MATE and it's decent. I'm a Luddite though, so sometimes I convert epubs to plain text with pandoc and read them in emacs or a terminal.
ah. i use calibre web for conversion aswell. just never used it as an app. what is a benefit 9f having the app then?
Avoids the need for a network connection or server, though I guess you could run it on a local socket. The UI might be preferable too.
ok. i want to read on different devices for some reason. like a good book on the couch with a tablet, in the kitch looking up a manual on my phone and maybe working on computer read some magazine. that would mean i need to install 3 clients and maybe without nfs even have a copy of each book on each device? and if you jave nfs you could aswell run a calibre container somewhere. but for UI I agree web could be better.