My e-book management currently consist of storing a bunch of files, both .epub, .pdf and .azw3 stored either by author (fiction) or by topic (non-fiction), for various sources (purchased e-books, downloaded via University subscriptions, Project Guthenberg and some from Library Genesis/Anna’s Archive). For some time I’d been wanting to organize them better, with a web UI to download in a format of my choice and to be able to share with others.
I first found out about and became interested in Booklore, as it seemed to fulfill my needs, and decided to research it more in-depth and oh boy, what drama… I am aware of the Grimmory fork, but I am not touching that with a ten-foot pole until it has matured and can be generally considered to be trustworthy.
So instead I started experimenting with the more established Calibre + Calibre-Web setup (I decided against Calibre Web Automated, as that also seemed a little shady). I find the UI of Calibre-Web to be fine enough for my use, but would have loved to be able to edit more metadata in the UI (it appears I am unable to add a cover for instance). But the Calibre server has so far been very frustrating to work with for me, and does not fit my desired workflow at all. I basically want to be able to dump my files onto my server (and continuously sync local files to the sever), get the metadata mostly automatically sorted with easy options to amend missing metadata (preferably from a web UI and not that screen-share thing that doesn’t even work in Librewolf). I have not found a way for it to automatically import new books, and if I reimport from the directory I dump my books in, it will reimport some of the books where the metadata was changed (some it will realize is the same, and ask to skip), so I end up with multiple duplicates. I work under the assumption that its mostly user errors so far, and I will try to master it better, but so far I find it very intuitive.
I will be looking more into Kavita as well, but so far I know very little about it.
How are you setup in your homelab for e-book management? Would love to see some examples of well-established workflows that works for you.
What version of Calibre-Web are you using? Mine has support to upload an image for a cover. I’m just using the latest docker image from ghcr.io/linuxserver/calibre-web.
My current workflow is pretty basic, I took my Calibre library I already had, dropped it into Calibre-Web and moved to a fully web based setup (so I don’t use Calibre at all anymore, just Calibre-Web). I’ve got the Kobo integration working too so I can mark books to sync to my device through the browser and then just sync my Kobo wirelessly.
I tend to use the Kobo store to purchase new books so I’m a bit lax about grabbing local copies of everything, but whenever I do get new books I can upload them into Calibre-Web, edit the metadata after I match the book, and then I’m good to go. But I also don’t add books that often at the moment, so haven’t seen much point in investing much time into further automation.
ETA: Well, I toured the Calibre-Web settings again, and now I can upload books and covers. Must have been a little tired on my first attempt. Still couldn’t get the conversion to work properly - I only have the option of going from EPUB -> KEPUB (whatever that is). I typically prefer reading PDF on my current reader, and I have users who need .azw3 for their jailbroken Kindle device. I guess the paths to the conversion tools aren’t properly configured.
ETA2: Now I got the conversion to work as well. Seems like I will be able to use it with Calibre-Web only as well. Nice!
Hm, I’m using lscr.io/linuxserver/calibre-web:latest, which is version 0.6.26 (5a1f3d8eec42d03228b1e5dec9bc750ca10bbc94 - 2026-02-06T20:40:07+01:00). Looked again to see if I could find a way to do it, but no.
How do you upload books directly using Calibre-Web? And do you not have Calibre running behind at all, just the original database?
An other shortcoming of Calibre-Web seems to be that I am unable to convert books from the UI (that is thankfully very easy to do in Calibre). I added some Docker mods that I thought would allow me to do this, but I have at least not found a way.
Nice to know it works with Kobo - I don’t have one, but if my current reader stops working I am likely to get one of those.
KEPUB (whatever that is)
It’s an EPUB file that’s been optimized for a Kobo device.
And no, I don’t have Calibre running behind this anymore. I took the database Calibre (since I used it previously) had already created, loaded it with Calibre-Web, and it had enough capability that for me at least, I don’t need the desktop app anymore. I’m sure there’s any number of reasons why someone might, but for me, it works on its own.
I’m pretty locked in to Calibre myself. I use a plugin called fanficfare to collect web fictions I like, which generates epubs and updates them when the stories get updated. Across those and regular books I’ve got about 6k books in my digital library. Right now it just runs on my desktop, but I’d like to move it to my server at some point.
As for actually reading them, I either plug in my kobo and manually sync/add books that way, or use the now discontinued Calibre Companion app on android to do the same on my phone. Unfortunately I haven’t found an app that is good enough to replace it for my needs, so I just deal with the app being unstable on the current version of android.Openbooks downloading to Calibre’s auto ingestion folder, all running as a docker compose. OPDS service feeds FBreader on an Android tablet.
I was looking into Kavita due to their support for manga! I believe most of the ebook readers either support .pdf/.epub style things meant for western books and seperate apps primarily support manga alone, Kavita seemed like the only mature service for all of it!
I see you’ve partly solved your upload and cover issue, but I will say that CWA with auto monitoring directories and auto conversion has been a godsend for me.
My workflow is to add the books manually to CWA, and I have a bookshelf that just syncs to my kobo.
I like audiobookshelf since I can self host it and listen to my podcasts. But I’ll admit it does have some issues visually when trying to read on the iOS or iPadOS app. The web view is great though.
Hm, I never considered Audiobookshelf for e-books - I already have it running for audiobooks. I should check that out!
I kind of railroaded myself into using calibre unfortunately.
I have a very specific filenaming scheme which I originally came up with back when I only used folders for organising my books in order to group together books that belong to a series but where the series is part of a larger universe.
Basically my folder structure is {World}/{Reading Order}; {Series} #{Series_Index} - {Title} - {Author}
On my kobo I have the autoshelf plugin installed which automatically parses this information when I add books and groups them together by world while filling out the series information.
In order to properly make use of this system I need to use Calibre custom columns and be able to export the books I want with this specific name format. I have yet to find a program other than calibre that would support this.
It would probably be smarter for me to reorganize my books at some point but I really like being able to basically drop a ton of books at once onto my reader using SFTP and as far as I can tell all common options rely on manually downloading the books, sending them directly to the reader or pulling them from their internal file storage in whatever form the application stores them…
I do like Audiobookshelf for the ability to add a book to multiple series, but the missing mass export functions stop me from switching
