head to head · open source
koreader vs feather
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars, 2,019 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. feather has 609 stars, 54 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. koreader leads on adoption by 4,960% (30,818 vs 609 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; feather is written in Swift under MIT. koreader has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, feather 9%. koreader was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | feather | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 609 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 54 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick koreader if
- You weight community size — 31K 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 feather if
- You want the feather feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and feather fits your workflow better
About koreader
KOReader is a document viewer primarily aimed at e ink readers. [![AGPL Licence][badge license]](COPYING) [![Latest release][badge release]][link gh releases] [![Gitter][badge gitter]][link gitter] [![Mobileread][badge mobileread]][link forum] [![Build Status][badge circleci]][link circleci] [![Coverage Status][badge coverage]][link coverage] [![Weblate Status][badge weblate]][link weblate] Download • User guide • Wiki • Developer docs Main features portable : runs on embedded devices (Cervantes, Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, reMarkable), Android and Linux computers. Developers can run a KOReader emulator in Linux…
read the full koreader overview →
About feather
Feather CMS 🪶 ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ !WORK IN PROGRESS! ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ 🪶 Feather is a modern Swift based Content Management System. 💬 Click to join the chat on Discord. Make Commands Run these from the repository root: make clean Clears only the Postgres database volume and media storage volume. make reset Drops the full Compose stack, including all Compose managed volumes. make stop Stops all running services without removing them. make deps Builds and runs the current dependency services: certificates , postgres , and migrator . make application Builds the shared application artifact image once, builds the runtime images from…
read the full feather overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or feather more popular?
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars and feather has 609. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and feather free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and feather under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and feather?
koreader is written in Lua and feather in Swift. 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 feather?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (30,818 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose feather if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.