head to head · open source
calibre vs calibre-web
calibre has 25,923 GitHub stars, 2,690 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calibre-web has 18,198 stars, 1,860 forks, 409 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. calibre leads on adoption by 42% (25,923 vs 18,198 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 | ★ 18K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Fluent |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-05 |
| 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 is the official source code repository for the calibre e book manager, an open source application written in Python and released under GPL 3.0. It lives in the content and publishing ecosystem as a desktop tool for books, and it is cross platform, running on Linux, Windows and macOS. The project has been hosted on GitHub for roughly thirteen years, carries about 25,900 stars and 2,683 forks, and its home on the web is calibre ebook.com, where an About page and a screenshots page document it further.
read the full calibre overview →
About calibre-web
Calibre Web is a web application that provides a clean and intuitive interface for browsing, reading, and downloading eBooks from a valid Calibre database. It is a fork of the library project (calibreserver) and is licensed under the GPL v3. The project lives in the Calibre ecosystem, and it is distributed through PyPI as the calibreweb package as well as through Docker images. It has been developed for over eleven years and carries roughly 18,183 stars and 1,856 forks on GitHub.
read the full calibre-web overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is calibre or calibre-web more popular?
calibre has 25,923 GitHub stars and calibre-web has 18,198. 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 (25,923 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.