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[-] fonix232@fedia.io 17 points 18 hours ago

It's a pity Calibre to date refuses to be refactored into a self-hosted service.

The core logic should be portable, with the app just being an interface to it, but no, the entire project is so much spaghetti it would feed the entire boot for over a year... such a shame.

[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago

Agree, though calibre-web exists and runs in a single Docker container. I've been using it for a few years, and it's great.

Sure its a whole Linux server under the hood just to run Calibre and the services required to give it a web interface and API for reading apps - making it way bigger than it needs to be - but it does the job.

[-] ohulancutash@feddit.uk 9 points 17 hours ago

Calibre-web isn’t Calibre. It uses the same database, but that’s about it, unless you use the optional conversion mod on the linuxserver container.

[-] fonix232@fedia.io 6 points 16 hours ago

A docker container is preferred, but again, CW isn't Calibre. Same database but completely different management system + also lacking a lot of the sync opportunities.

The issue is that there's no open protocol for library syncing. It doesn't exist because all big players (Amazon, Kobo/Rakuten, B&N, etc.) have their own proprietary system, and need no open alternatives.

OPDS is a thing but it's meant to replicate a physical library (one you can walk into) in behaviour and approach, not a personal library (list all books I have and give me easy access to them). It's essentially just an RSS-style feed that has no defined structure, thus isn't software navigable - e.g. there's no guarantee you can list all book series, or all authors, and most implementations usually give you very roughly defined "recently added", or "hot now" book lists...

I've actually been working on a solution for this, something that provides an almost Kindle library experience (see all your books from a remote server, sync down the remote ebook file, sync back read progress, filter/search based on book properties, etc.), while being flexible enough for non-readers applications as well. But I haven't even gotten to the point where I can define the API contract properly, let alone the backing database and mapping to Calibre. Honestly at this stage I feel like the best approach is starting from scratch, establishing modern requirements, and going from there.

[-] ftbd@feddit.org 2 points 16 hours ago

A docker container is not a whole separate Linux server, it uses the kernel running on the host

[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Have you seen the apt sources list that CW generates on boot? It's semantics. 😊

[-] notfromhere@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 hours ago

With default runtime, very true. There are other runtimes that can be used that provide better isolation like gVisor, kata, firecracker, etc.

this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
302 points (98.1% liked)

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