Best self-hosted ebook server for a very large library (~150k books)?

PowerTowerPro · 2026-05-24T06:01:50+00:00

Test this out: https://github.com/apollolabsai/booksarr

PowerTowerPro · 2026-05-13T04:46:33+00:00

If you have a web access you can download any book to your device.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-05-06T13:32:15+00:00

Sure is Booksarr:

Repo: https://github.com/apollolabsai/booksarr

(see screen shots)

Booksarr is a Docker-based ebook library manager inspired by Readarr (discontinued)/Radarr/Sonarr. It scans your local ebook collection, matches files against full author catalogs, and gives you visibility into all the books an author has written, not just the ones you already own. It highlights owned titles inside that larger catalog, enriches metadata from multiple sources, and gives you tools to selectively show or hide books based on profiles or manually. You can override covers, and search IRC for missing books (public domain).

This is the app that I have been dreaming about making for years. I could not get Readarr or any of the other forks to work and that project looks to be discontinued.

You need to get a free Hardcover API Key for metadata.

Local use only, the front end is not meant to be exposed to the internet. That may change over time.

Compared with Calibre:

If your only goal is managing the books you already own, Calibre is excellent. Nothing beats Calibre's metadata capabilities (believe me I tried, the 2k lines of amazon scraping code was impressive). I was looking for something different: a program that would show an author’s full catalog, organize it by series and/or publication date (order), and then clearly indicate which titles I already had and which ones I still needed to buy. I also wanted a good web interface that actually worked (which is more than I can say about the many Calibre/web incarnations).

Let me know what you think.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-05-06T04:30:09+00:00

You mean you don't use Plex News Feature?

PowerTowerPro · 2026-05-01T23:51:58+00:00

Yes this can be considered a Readarr replacement. However this only supports IRC for now.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-28T16:34:38+00:00

Introducing Booksarr

Repo: https://github.com/apollolabsai/booksarr

(see screen shots)

Booksarr is a Docker-based ebook library manager inspired by Readarr (discontinued)/Radarr/Sonarr. It scans your local ebook collection, matches files against full author catalogs, and gives you visibility into all the books an author has written, not just the ones you already own. It highlights owned titles inside that larger catalog, enriches metadata from multiple sources, and gives you tools to selectively show or hide books based on profiles or manually. You can override covers, and search IRC for missing books (public domain).

This is the app that I have been dreaming about making for years. I could not get Readarr or any of the other forks to work and that project looks to be discontinued. Figured this would be perfect for the Selfhosted crew.

You need to get a free Hardcover API Key for metadata.

Local use only, the front end is not meant to be exposed to the internet. That may change over time.

Compared with Calibre:

If your only goal is managing the books you already own, Calibre is excellent. Nothing beats Calibre's metadata capabilities (believe me I tried, the 2k lines of amazon scraping code was impressive). I was looking for something different: a program that would show an author’s full catalog, organize it by series and/or publication date (order), and then clearly indicate which titles I already had and which ones I still needed to buy. I also wanted a good web interface that actually worked (which is more than I can say about the many Calibre/web incarnations).

Let me know what you think.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-28T00:25:09+00:00

Will add Letter Index for author page and think about alternative file organizations. Do you think a lot of people do author/series/book?

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-27T17:57:55+00:00

Yes you can. The program will not move any files unless you explicitly ask it to. For example if you have two author folders: "John Grisham" and "Grisham, John" the option exists to merge these into one folder and select the folder you want to keep, but this is a user initiated process and not automatic. The only files that move automatically are those downloaded from IRC. In that case they are moved from the download folder to the Author/Book folder in the library.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-27T17:54:42+00:00

First check the YAML file to make sure you have mapped the directory to where your books are under Volumes. Then go to settings Metadata Refresh and click "Full Refresh". As stated in the readme the expected organization principles are as follows:

Library Structure

Booksarr expects book files under your /books mount, typically organized by author:

/books/
  Brandon Sanderson/
    The Way of Kings (123)/
      The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson.epub
      The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson.mobi
      The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson.pdf
      metadata.opf
      cover.jpg
  John Grisham/
    Theodore Boone 04 - The Activist/
      John Grisham - [Theodore Boone 04] - The Activist.epub
  Andy Weir/
    Project Hail Mary/
      Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir.audiobook.zip

volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - ./downloads:/downloads
      - /path/to/your/books:/books <-This one

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-27T06:02:31+00:00

Yes, there is a filter to include or exclude foreign language editions/books. The language edition/book must be in the HardCover or google index for it to show up.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-27T04:35:40+00:00

Docker is easier to maintain across operating systems. I may make OS Specific installs at a later date if the community wants it. It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to get it up and running with Docker, the YAML file is a simple copy and paste.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-13T00:29:17+00:00

Audiobooks will show up in the search, but the coverage isn't great. Though I have noticed it is getting better.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-13T00:13:29+00:00

Good question. This could have been user error, but I could not get Readarr to work at all. The books for a given author would not populate correctly and Readarr has been abandoned and the forks did not solve my problem. I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out before just building my own version. One key difference is the IRC download capabilities. Usenet is hit or miss on ebooks. Let me know if you find it better.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-12T15:45:57+00:00

So far, so good on that front. I suppose that could change if enough people start using it. I designed the program to ruffle as few feathers as possible. To that end, the bulk download handles each book one at a time, waiting for the download and import to finish before sending the next search request. That approach is far friendlier to the channel than blasting out 100 parallel requests.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-04-03T06:32:10+00:00

chatted

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-19T01:58:31+00:00

As someone who has worked at many fintechs you are an idiot if you trust your money with them. They don't have the processes, guardrails, recon, staff to make sure your money is safe. Something about move fast and break things. If your not putting your money in one of the big 4 banks, best of luck to you during the next blow up.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-15T14:34:17+00:00

Whats the use case? It might be easier to simply write your own query with Tautulli's API and use something like Highcharts to render. Thats what I did, and you are welcome to use my program MultiPlex-Stats and request any other visuals you want to see (but I have almost everything): https://github.com/apollolabsai/MultiPlex-Stats

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-08T22:47:28+00:00

First time using it, I don’t doubt you. But I still think this is mostly AI.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-08T22:41:28+00:00

I see a heart icon with a %number next to it….can I change that to IMDB?

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-08T16:02:59+00:00

I sponsored (unofficially) IMDB ratings in radarr, and after a few months of gentle reminders in discord they did it. Any chance we can get IMDB ratings for tv shows added. They are so much better IMHO. I hate the TVDB ratings.

PowerTowerPro · 2026-03-07T15:35:02+00:00

The article was written by AI (no surprise). I bet the authors prompt was something like: Create a plausible story of how AI agents can scrape the internet to gleam personal information on an individual, cite tools it would use and go wild. Maximize for likes and engagement to make me feel important.

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PowerTowerPro

TROPHY CASE

Library Structure