head to head · open source
koreader vs PyMuPDF
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars, 1,908 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PyMuPDF has 10,732 stars, 798 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped yesterday. koreader leads on adoption by 177% (29,761 vs 10,732 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; PyMuPDF is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. koreader has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, PyMuPDF 7%. 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 | PyMuPDF | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 11K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 798 |
| 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 PyMuPDF if
- You want the PyMuPDF feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and PyMuPDF 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 PyMuPDF
PyMuPDF is a high performance Python library, built on the MuPDF C engine, for extracting, analysing, converting, rendering and manipulating PDF and other documents, aimed at Python developers building data extraction, document processing and AI retrieval pipelines.
read the full PyMuPDF overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or PyMuPDF more popular?
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars and PyMuPDF has 10,732. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and PyMuPDF free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PyMuPDF under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and PyMuPDF?
koreader is written in Lua and PyMuPDF 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 PyMuPDF?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (29,761 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose PyMuPDF if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.