head to head · open source
koreader vs epub-press-clients
koreader has 29,766 GitHub stars, 1,908 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped today. epub-press-clients has 618 stars, 87 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. koreader leads on adoption by 4,717% (29,766 vs 618 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; epub-press-clients is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. koreader has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, epub-press-clients 14%. koreader was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ebook, epub, kindle), 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
| koreader | epub-press-clients | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 618 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Lua | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 87 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick koreader if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick epub-press-clients if
- You want the epub-press-clients feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and epub-press-clients fits your workflow better
About koreader
KOReader is a free, AGPL 3.0 licensed document viewer written in Lua that runs on e ink readers from Cervantes, Kindle, Kobo and PocketBook, on reMarkable, and on Android and desktop Linux, aimed at readers who want broader format support, finer typesetting control and better performance than the reading software shipped with their device.
read the full koreader overview →
About epub-press-clients
epub press clients Easy to use clients for building ebooks with EpubPress. Backend code can be found in haroldtreen/epub press. Follow us on Twitter. Overview EpubPress is a service for stitching articles/blogs/webpages into a customized ebook. 🌟 Benefits 🌟 EpubPress makes reading the web more enjoyable! Downloads your articles for offline reading. Books are compatible with all your iPhone, Android, Kindle, Nook, etc. Removes website boilerplate and ads. Just. Clean. Content. Lets you group information together (eg. "News from this week", "Top 10 travel articles"). Easy to sharing with friends. Packages 📦 epub…
read the full epub-press-clients overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or epub-press-clients more popular?
koreader has 29,766 GitHub stars and epub-press-clients has 618. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and epub-press-clients free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and epub-press-clients under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and epub-press-clients?
koreader is written in Lua and epub-press-clients in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, koreader or epub-press-clients?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (29,766 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose epub-press-clients if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.