head to head · open source
koreader vs so-novel
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars, 1,908 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. so-novel has 8,137 stars, 724 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. koreader leads on adoption by 266% (29,761 vs 8,137 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; so-novel is written in Java under AGPL-3.0. koreader has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, so-novel 9%. koreader was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ebook), 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 | so-novel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Lua | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 724 |
| 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 so-novel if
- You want the so-novel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and so-novel 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 so-novel
So Novel is an AGPL 3.0 Java tool that extracts structured content from web pages and exports it as standard ebook and document formats including EPUB, TXT, and PDF, built for people who want offline copies of web fiction and for anyone turning web content into readable documents.
read the full so-novel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or so-novel more popular?
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars and so-novel has 8,137. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and so-novel free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and so-novel under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and so-novel?
koreader is written in Lua and so-novel in Java. 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 so-novel?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (29,761 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose so-novel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.