head to head · open source
koreader vs foliate-js
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars, 2,019 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. foliate-js has 1,146 stars, 296 forks, 61 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. koreader leads on adoption by 2,589% (30,818 vs 1,146 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; foliate-js is written in JavaScript under MIT. koreader has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, foliate-js 26%. koreader was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (cbz, ebook, ebook-reader, 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
| koreader | foliate-js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 296 |
| 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 foliate-js if
- You want the foliate-js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and foliate-js 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 foliate-js
foliate js Library for rendering e books in the browser. Features: Supports EPUB, MOBI, KF8 (AZW3), FB2, CBZ, PDF (experimental; requires PDF.js) Add support for other formats yourself by implementing the book interface Pure JavaScript Small and modular No hard dependencies Does not require loading whole file into memory Does not care about older browsers Demo The repo includes a demo viewer that can be used to open local files. To use it, serve the files with a server, and navigate to reader.html . Or visit the online demo hosted on GitHub. Note that it is very incomplete at the moment, and lacks many basic…
read the full foliate-js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or foliate-js more popular?
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars and foliate-js has 1,146. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and foliate-js free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and foliate-js under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and foliate-js?
koreader is written in Lua and foliate-js 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 foliate-js?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (30,818 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose foliate-js if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.