head to head · open source
calibre vs calibre-web
calibre has 26,327 GitHub stars, 2,743 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calibre-web has 18,524 stars, 1,899 forks, 409 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. calibre leads on adoption by 42% (26,327 vs 18,524 stars). calibre is written in Python under GPL-3.0; calibre-web is written in Fluent under GPL-3.0. calibre has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, calibre-web 10%. calibre was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (calibre, ebook, ebook-manager, epub), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| calibre | calibre-web | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 19K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Fluent |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick calibre if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick calibre-web if
- You want the calibre-web feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Fluent
- You evaluated both and calibre-web fits your workflow better
About calibre
calibre calibre is an e book manager. It can view, convert, edit and catalog e books in all of the major e book formats. It can also talk to e book reader devices. It can go out to the internet and fetch metadata for your books. It can download newspapers and convert them into e books for convenient reading. It is cross platform, running on Linux, Windows and macOS. For more information, see the calibre About page. Screenshots Screenshots page Usage See the User Manual. Development Setting up a development environment for calibre. A tarball of the source code for the current calibre release. Bugs Bug reports and…
read the full calibre overview →
About calibre-web
Calibre Web Calibre Web is a web app that offers a clean and intuitive interface for browsing, reading, and downloading eBooks using a valid Calibre database. Table of Contents (click to expand) 1. About 2. Features 3. Installation Installation via pip (recommended) Quick start Requirements 4. Docker Images 5. Troubleshooting 6. Contributor Recognition 7. Contact 8. Contributing to Calibre Web This software is a fork of library and licensed under the GPL v3 License. Features Modern and responsive Bootstrap 3 HTML5 interface Full graphical setup Comprehensive user management with fine grained per user permissions…
read the full calibre-web overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is calibre or calibre-web more popular?
calibre has 26,327 GitHub stars and calibre-web has 18,524. calibre has the larger community by that measure.
Are calibre and calibre-web free?
Both are open source. calibre is licensed under GPL-3.0 and calibre-web under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between calibre and calibre-web?
calibre is written in Python and calibre-web in Fluent. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, calibre or calibre-web?
Choose calibre if you want the larger community (26,327 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose calibre-web if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.