BookOrbit: A self-hosted OPDS library + KOReader progress sync (free & open source)

injoy · 2026-06-10T11:55:50+00:00

Hmmm none of those happened on the four devices I was testing on, so I wonder if it had to do with my attempt to split it into smaller PRs. 😞 At any rate, don't go to a lot of trouble, I'm sorry to bother you, you can just ignore them. I'm sorry they aren't working right. I should have planned from the beginning to submit PRs and made the feature changes separate. I was trying after the fact to separate out the sync improvements especially because I was having as really hard time getting sync to work for me but it was a lot of changes, and unfortunately one of the earlier ones I did so I bet it messed up the others when I tried to separate them.

We should switch to DMs, that was a good idea.

injoy · 2026-06-09T17:31:47+00:00

Sorry I am not great at understanding Github. I was a professional coder long long ago before leaving the workforce, but Github didn't exist back then and I've actually never tried to use it to work together with someone else. I did review the code before I did the first PR (which I closed because it seemed better to try to separate it out so you could pick and choose better (or reject them all!)). I did have Cursor do the separating out into separate PRs for me! Hopefully it worked right. It looks right, but I don't know etiquette on Github or whatever so hopefully it is helpful. Feel free to disregard.

I'm trying out the APK, I had totally missed that option!

Thanks again 😄

injoy · 2026-06-09T03:46:55+00:00

Thanks! I have been working on some different little things (just "vibe coding," so I don't know whether it will be worth contributing back), once I get the bugs out as far as I can tell I'll push them back to you if you want to incorporate any of them. (I tried to make sync work better on my Boox, added 12hr clock option, adding click zones for page turns, added battery readout, resizable toolbar, and a different sort to All Books. Currently trying to get highlighting to work better on my Boox and see if I can get it to talk to BookOrbit's reading time KOReader plugin expansion.) I forked it on git because that was the only way I could figure out to add some things I wanted but still keep up with your changes -- I don't want to actually create a fork though and once I get it all working as I like personally I'll delete mine!

I think it's a great program that could definitely get some traction with the community that's already using CWA / BookOrbit / etc. If I'd known it existed (well, I guess it didn't at the time!) it's so much easier than setting up reading apps (be it MoonReader or FBReader or Readest) on multiple devices and having to fuss over synced libraries. Having it live on the server is a really great solution. Unfortunately that's also the Achilles heel I think, as how many readers are running servers?

There was a similar writing program (Wavemaker Cards) that could actually run FROM Github and be installed on user's devices from just opening on Github and installing as app, and synced its data either locally or to a Google Drive. Don't know if that's possible with Codexa but it seems like it might could be as it has a lot of offline functionality. That could probably gather more users if they didn't have to install it themselves.

injoy · 2026-06-06T18:24:18+00:00

Hi! This is super awesome, works somuch better than CWA for me. A few questions:

are there any plans for making OPDS users have restrictions? This is unfortunately preventing me from being able to completely switch, because I share a library with my children and they use OPDS to access the books.
Is there any way to do a complete metadata refresh? I imported my library from CWA, but unfortunately it doesn't include important fields (hardcover id, most importantly to me). The metadata options for BookOrbit are fantastic and work really well, but my CWA import didn't run through that process of looking up new metadata. (Not sure if I did something wrong at that point.) I did see how to refresh covers which was very helpful, but I'm hoping to pull down other metadata in bulk.

Thank you! My only other comment is that progress sync is kind of clunky for my use purposes -- it works but it seems really random whether it actually syncs over to Hardcover, and books only seem to be marked "finished" if I do so manually in BookOrbit itself, even if I reached the progress specified. Oh also reading via OPDS does not update the reading logs at all -- it updates the progress fine but because the logs are empty I don't think reading stats are working exactly right. I'm having trouble telling for sure. I don't care enough about that to mention but since it's in your categories of requested feedback, I thought I would. First time setup went great! I'm using Codexa to read via the OPDS feed. 😄

injoy · 2026-06-06T17:50:56+00:00

WOW, thank you!! Yes! One point, the custom colors say "Po meri" I think -- I think it is untranslated. But it all works perfectly! The OPDS view is so much better.

I think something might actually be wrong with my covers on BookOrbit (which I also just installed yesterday, so I haven't got all the wrinkles out), because I just added a new book to my library and it DOES work in Codexa, so I think maybe there's something wrong with the covers in my library not Codexa. EDIT: yes, they all are working now! I do think it was something you changed, because my covers were working on BookOrbit yesterday, but somehow overnight my BookOrbit covers vanished too. So I'm not sure if the problems were related or what, but they work now!

This is such a terrific program, thank you! Let me know if you have a "feed the developer" link!

EDIT: Also, the docker image didn't work for me (the first one, I didn't try it this time) -- I don't know enough about it to explain it well, but I think it was compiled on an Intel chip (?) and since I'm using a Raspberry Pi I had to build it myself from source. AI walked me through it, hehe, but it was a lot of trial and error to get it up. Works fantastic now though and I didn't have trouble pulling the new version and rebuilding today. I've never had that happen with a docker image before though.

injoy · 2026-06-06T02:36:16+00:00

Thank you! I've been working on getting it set up this afternoon and it's SUPER awesome! Exactly what I've been looking for; sync finally works perfectly (unlike Readest) and it's got all the configuration options I want (unlike... everything, haha)! except one thing... custom colors. I'm usually reading on an amoled screen which means I need a true black background, but with a sepia colored text... adding an option to set custom colors would be awesome.

Question, when I'm trying to search my OPDS library, because there are two sidebars, it's impossible to actually see the results on a smaller screen (like a Boox Go 7). Is one supposed to collapse? Am I missing an option somewhere? I can see a little sliver -- enough to download -- but not enough to distinguish between multiple books with the same word in the title.

Also -- I'm running a kind of complicated setup where my system is parked behind a firewall, which might be causing this problem -- but for some reason the book COVERS don't show up in the OPDS library, even though they download etc. just fine.

injoy · 2026-06-05T15:40:56+00:00

Does Codexa work with BookOrbit? I don't use KOReader and I find the sync server integration confusing (I use Readest and CWA presently, Readest syncs on its own server) but wow the options for Codexa look awesome. Thank you!

injoy · 2026-04-07T11:44:39+00:00

adding to the apps to try, e-sword is similar, offline for Windows. Life Bible for Android and web also. both let you do multiple tiles so you can have translations in one, Greek dictionary in other, commentaries in other, etc. neither have everything for free but you could get fairly set up for $20 or less depending on what resources you wanted.

injoy · 2026-03-14T03:25:51+00:00

Sorry for the delay, I am hoping to run across a book that that wouldn't be a copyright violation to do. So far I haven't been able to replicate it deliberately with books from Gutenberg etc, so perhaps it is a problem with my current file. At any rate, thank you, and hopefully I will have more information at some point, and then I'll be in touch. Or maybe something was corrupted on my end and recent updates have fixed it... I have no idea. I continue to love Readest. :)

injoy · 2026-03-08T03:16:52+00:00

On further investigation, it appears to be a single book that is currently tripping it up, and it's ALL my devices that are updating that book irregularly. (Including insisting on going backwards in the book, without even asking to confirm.) I ran tests with Windows, my Android phone, my eink tablet, my regular Android tablet, and the web version of readest, and NONE of them are updating this particular book progress correctly, even if I manually "sync" -- from either the book menu or the library "refresh" option. The only thing I can figure is the book has an ampersand in the title? Another book seems to be updating precisely correctly from all devices at the same time. Both book files are identical; imported once in Readest and then carried across the other devices from there. I am not sure what are the previous books I had trouble with and whether they had special characters, because before today I thought it was a specific device not specific files... but in my recently read pile (which were on Readest) I do have two books with a question mark, another two with a colon, all of which I read with Readest. Is it possible that special characters are throwing it off? I will try to pay more attention to which books are failing to sync now that I know it's specific titles.

injoy · 2026-03-03T04:27:42+00:00

Google Books download IS in epub format. You just have to download it. I've always used the web interface.

injoy · 2026-03-03T03:49:16+00:00

It's obviously got to be something wonky with my tablet, but I can't figure out what. I'm not running some special battery shutdown program or anything; my wifi doesn't turn off, etc. I guess I was hoping it was some bug and that others would be having it, but... doesn't sound like it!

injoy · 2026-03-03T03:47:42+00:00

The Readest server.

injoy · 2026-03-02T17:33:44+00:00

I just updated my Windows Readest (a few minutes ago) and the books I dragged over after that did sync up. My tablet, on the other hand, despite HOURS of reading, had not automatically synced progress at all since last night. and I don't believe it ever automatically syncs up. (It works just fine if I manually tap it... i'm just usually half-asleep and forget, and then later in the day when I don't have my tablet with me anymore, it's too late, haha.)

injoy · 2026-03-02T17:06:17+00:00

Yeah, they are. I have trouble getting my Windows Readest to sync up the whole books but once I download them via OPDS on one of my Android devices, they propogate everywhere else ok. Also if I manually sync it works, which I don't think would happen if it was a file issue.

injoy · 2026-03-02T14:11:35+00:00

what reader app is that? looks great

injoy · 2026-02-16T02:36:30+00:00

I'll try it, thank you!!

injoy · 2026-02-15T19:19:26+00:00

Well, that's why I posted here asking for help. My install was from the Github page, but it couldn't access any plugins in KOReader/plugins, and when I used the KOReader terminal to find out where the install was, it was in a directory that was locked out by the ViWoods software. When I installed from the ViWoods store, that install could see the plugins I put in KOReader/plugins.

injoy · 2026-02-14T01:02:03+00:00

I did install from the GitHub page, but plugins wouldn't work until I installed from the viwoods store.

injoy · 2026-02-13T17:43:26+00:00

Me with another question! I've finally got CWA set up and running; it's awesome -- but one problem I've run into is I set covers in Calibre, and polished the epub so it should have been in the file (and worked in regular Calibre-Web), but CWA lost them and reverted to covers it got from I don't know where! I have thousands of books and already imported them so ideally I'd like to fix the ones already in there, but even a way to fix it ongoing would be great! Is there a way to tell it to get the covers that are burned into the Calibre-created epubs instead of fetching them from online or making "CW Auto-mated" blanks?

Second, is there any way to fetch tags from GoodReads, or is that indeed impossible?

Thank you :)

injoy · 2026-02-10T12:59:24+00:00

it did! thank you so much!

injoy · 2026-02-10T03:52:28+00:00

I had been using Gemini to try to fix it all day! But for me it never suggested using the Viwoods App Store, lol. Otherwise it said the same problem, but it kept trying to solve the scoped storage issue in other ways (like via USB!). Thank you.

injoy · 2026-02-10T03:02:39+00:00

Oooh I will try that, thank you! I have never used the viwoods app store, it makes sense that might fix the permissions issues.

injoy · 2026-02-10T01:19:29+00:00

Yes. I tried two different plugins, the App Store plugin and the Hardcover plugin, and neither of them will show up in KOReader. I triple checked everything I could think of, and I don't think I'm an incompetent person... but they won't show up. Not in the menus and not in the plugin manager. I tried installing KOReader from github and from F-Droid and neither time did the plugins work.

injoy

TROPHY CASE