head to head · open source
calibre vs EpubReader
calibre has 26,327 GitHub stars, 2,743 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. EpubReader has 552 stars, 106 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. calibre leads on adoption by 4,669% (26,327 vs 552 stars). calibre is written in Python under GPL-3.0; EpubReader is written in C# under Unlicense. calibre has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, EpubReader 19%. 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 | EpubReader | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 552 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Unlicense |
| Written in | Python | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 106 |
| 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 EpubReader if
- You want the EpubReader feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and EpubReader 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 EpubReader
.NET library for reading EPUB files. Supported EPUB standards: EPUB 2 (2.0, 2.0.1) EPUB 3 (3.0, 3.0.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3) Supported runtimes: .NET Standard = 1.3 (includes .NET Core = 1.0 and .NET = 5) .NET Framework = 4.6 Download Documentation WPF & .NET 10 console demo apps EpubReader in a nutshell Demo apps Download WPF demo app (WpfDemo.zip) This .NET Framework application demonstrates how to open EPUB books and extract their content using the library. HTML renderer used in this demo app may have difficulties while rendering content for some of the books if the HTML structure is too complicated. Download .NET…
read the full EpubReader overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is calibre or EpubReader more popular?
calibre has 26,327 GitHub stars and EpubReader has 552. calibre has the larger community by that measure.
Are calibre and EpubReader free?
Both are open source. calibre is licensed under GPL-3.0 and EpubReader under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between calibre and EpubReader?
calibre is written in Python and EpubReader in C#. 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 EpubReader?
Choose calibre if you want the larger community (26,327 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose EpubReader if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.