head to head · open source
koreader vs openreader
koreader has 29,766 GitHub stars, 1,908 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped today. openreader has 509 stars, 70 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. koreader leads on adoption by 5,748% (29,766 vs 509 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; openreader is written in TypeScript under MIT. koreader has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, openreader 14%. koreader 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
| koreader | openreader | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 509 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 70 |
| 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 openreader if
- You want the openreader feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and openreader 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 openreader
📄🔊 OpenReader OpenReader is an open source, self host friendly text to speech document reader built with Next.js for EPUB, PDF, TXT, MD, and DOCX with multilingual, synchronized read along playback. Previously named OpenReader WebUI . Get started in the docs . ✨ Highlights ▶️ Progressive background generation and playback — begin listening as soon as the first segment is ready while the worker continues generating ahead into one durable document timeline; cached audio is reused across seeks, reloads, and exports. 🧱 Layout aware PDF parsing with PP DocLayoutV3 (ONNX) — structured block detection, cross page sti…
read the full openreader overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or openreader more popular?
koreader has 29,766 GitHub stars and openreader has 509. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and openreader free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and openreader under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and openreader?
koreader is written in Lua and openreader in TypeScript. 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 openreader?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (29,766 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose openreader if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.