head to head · open source
calibre vs ebook2audiobook
calibre has 25,923 GitHub stars, 2,690 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ebook2audiobook has 20,198 stars, 1,728 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calibre leads on adoption by 28% (25,923 vs 20,198 stars). calibre is written in Python under GPL-3.0; ebook2audiobook is written in Python under Apache-2.0. calibre has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ebook2audiobook 9%. calibre was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | ebook2audiobook | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 20K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 ebook2audiobook if
- You want the ebook2audiobook feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and ebook2audiobook 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 ebook2audiobook
ebook2audiobook (E2A) is an open source Python tool that converts e books into audiobooks with chapters and metadata, using advanced text to speech engines. It supports voice cloning and 1158 languages, and runs on CPU or GPU. The project lives in the Python ecosystem, is licensed under Apache 2.0, and carries topics covering audiobook, TTS, voice cloning, multilingual output, Gradio, Docker, and XTTS. It has been on GitHub for three years and holds roughly 20,175 stars and 1,727 forks.
read the full ebook2audiobook overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is calibre or ebook2audiobook more popular?
calibre has 25,923 GitHub stars and ebook2audiobook has 20,198. calibre has the larger community by that measure.
Are calibre and ebook2audiobook free?
Both are open source. calibre is licensed under GPL-3.0 and ebook2audiobook under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between calibre and ebook2audiobook?
calibre is written in Python and ebook2audiobook in Python. 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 ebook2audiobook?
Choose calibre if you want the larger community (25,923 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ebook2audiobook if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.