BookLogr is a self-hosted web application that lets one person catalogue the books they own, are reading, or intend to read, keep that data on their own hardware, and optionally publish the library as a public profile for friends and family.

What it is

BookLogr is a web app for managing a personal book library. It is built to run on your own hardware rather than as a hosted account, and its stated purpose is giving the operator complete control over their data in a secure and private way. The repository is tagged with python, flask, react, books, bookshelf, catalog, library, logging, self-hosted and selfhosted, and is listed under the JavaScript language; the project sits in the self-hosted ecosystem, where a service is deployed and administered by its own user. Metadata lookups are powered by OpenLibrary, an external book catalogue, while the library records themselves stay in the operator's own database. The project is licensed Apache-2.0 and has 625 stars and 31 forks, with 26 open issues at the time of writing.

The concrete problem it solves is scattered, ad-hoc tracking of a reading life: which books are owned, which are in progress, which are finished, how far into the current book the reader has got, what rating it earned, and which passages are worth keeping. BookLogr puts those in one interface, with predefined lists for Reading, Already Read, To Be Read, and Did not finish, and with export to CSV, JSON and HTML so the catalogue is not locked inside the application. The facts provided do not name a specific product that BookLogr replaces; its role is to move that record-keeping off a hosted third-party account and onto infrastructure the operator controls, with an optional public view for anyone who does want to share.

Key capabilities

• Look up books by title or ISBN, powered by OpenLibrary.
• Add books manually when OpenLibrary does not have them.
• Sort books into predefined lists: Reading, Already Read, To Be Read, and Did not finish.
• Track the current page in the book being read.
• Rate read books on a 0.5 to 5-star scale, and save short notes and quotes.
• Share a public profile of the library, and automatically post reading progress to Mastodon.
• Export data in CSV, JSON, and HTML, and store it in SQLite (default) or PostgreSQL.

Who uses it and how

• Individual self-hosters run it on their own hardware as a private reading catalogue, optionally exposing a public profile for friends and family.
• Regular readers use it day to day to move books between lists, record the current page, and rate finished titles.
• Mastodon users let it publish reading progress to their account automatically instead of posting updates by hand.
• Translators contribute through the Crowdin project or directly in the live interface at translate-live.booklogr.app, with no coding knowledge required.
• Sponsors cover the project's monthly hosting costs through GitHub Sponsors, and contributors file bug reports, feature requests and code.

Getting started

BookLogr is made to be self-hosted and run on your own hardware, with step-by-step instructions in the Getting Started guide at booklogr.app/docs/Getting%20started. Development instructions live on the project wiki; no published package name or container image is named in the facts provided.

How it compares

No comparable or paid products are named in the facts supplied, and the registry lists no sibling tool for this entry, so BookLogr stands alone here. Its distinguishing facts are the Apache-2.0 licence, self-hosting on the operator's own hardware, and a data model the operator owns and can export in CSV, JSON and HTML.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must operate the application plus a database, SQLite by default or PostgreSQL, on their own hardware. The README states the project is under active development and that bugs and breaking changes should be expected, so anyone needing a frozen, long-stable release or a managed hosted service should look elsewhere. The documentation also lives largely off-repo, so the practical install and upgrade details depend on the external guides rather than the README itself.