head to head · open source
koreader vs papermill
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars, 2,019 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. papermill has 6,498 stars, 465 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. koreader leads on adoption by 374% (30,818 vs 6,498 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; papermill is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. koreader has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, papermill 7%. 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 | papermill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 465 |
| 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 papermill if
- You want the papermill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and papermill 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 papermill
papermill is a tool for parameterizing, executing, and analyzing Jupyter Notebooks. Papermill lets you: parameterize notebooks execute notebooks This opens up new opportunities for how notebooks can be used. For example: Perhaps you have a financial report that you wish to run with different values on the first or last day of a month or at the beginning or end of the year, using parameters makes this task easier. Do you want to run a notebook and depending on its results, choose a particular notebook to run next? You can now programmatically execute a workflow without having to copy and paste from notebook to…
read the full papermill overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or papermill more popular?
koreader has 30,818 GitHub stars and papermill has 6,498. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and papermill free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and papermill under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and papermill?
koreader is written in Lua and papermill in Python. 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 papermill?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (30,818 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose papermill if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.