[opensourcedex]

openreader is a free, open source publishing project written in TypeScript and released under MIT. It has 509 GitHub stars, 70 forks and 0 open issues, and was last pushed 6 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #48 of 50 tracked projects in Publishing, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available.

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📄🔊 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 stitching, and geometry-based highlighting for precise read-along sync.
  • ⏱️ Word-by-word highlighting via ONNX Whisper alignment through the compute worker control plane (NATS JetStream-backed).
  • 📚 Five readable formats — synchronized EPUB, PDF, TXT, MD, and worker-converted DOCX, with generated PDF/EPUB library previews.
  • 🎯 Multi-provider TTS — self-hosted OpenAI-compatible servers (Kokoro-FastAPI, KittenTTS-FastAPI, Orpheus-FastAPI) or cloud APIs (OpenAI, Replicate, DeepInfra).
  • 🌐 Multilingual support — choose a document language for language-aware narration and highlighting. Available languages depend on the configured TTS provider and voice.
  • 🎧 Audiobook export in M4B or MP3, assembled by the worker from the same playback cache.
  • 🗂️ Flexible backend — embedded SeaweedFS or S3-compatible storage, SQLite or Postgres, server library import, and device sync.
  • 🐳 Self-host friendly — Docker (amd64/arm64), built-in auth/session support, and automatic startup migrations.

🚀 Start Here

Goal Link
Run with Docker Compose Docker Compose
Deploy on Vercel Vercel Deployment
Deploy external compute worker Compute Worker (NATS JetStream)
Develop locally Local Development
Configure auth Auth
Configure SQL database Database and Migrations
Configure object storage Object / Blob Storage
Configure TTS providers TTS Providers
Run Kokoro locally Kokoro-FastAPI
Run KittenTTS locally KittenTTS-FastAPI
Get support or contribute Support and Contributing

🧭 Community

📜 License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Frequently asked questions

Is openreader free to use?

openreader is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does openreader do?

An open-source read-along document reader server with high-quality TTS options, synchronized highlighting, and audiobook export for EPUB, PDF, DOCX, TXT, and MD

What is openreader written in?

openreader is primarily written in TypeScript. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/richardr1126/openreader, and it has 509 GitHub stars.