{"slug": "audiobookshelf", "name": "Audiobookshelf", "category": "selfhosted", "category_name": "Self-hosted and home server", "description": "Self-hosted server for streaming and managing audiobooks, podcasts and ebooks.", "recommenders": 9, "commenters": 11, "warners": 1, "score": 7.551, "rising": 2.36, "first": "2026-01-07", "latest": "2026-10-09", "why": "HN commenters like it as a self-hosted server for audiobooks and podcasts, often running it alongside Jellyfin and Immich on a home server.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Audiobook server", "Self-hosted stack"], "caveat": "Ebook support", "short_quote": "I recommend Apple Books or Plappa on iOS, or Audiobookshelf on Android.", "icon": true, "domain": "audiobookshelf.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.audiobookshelf.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Audiobookshelf", "audiobookshelf"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like it as a self-hosted server for audiobooks and podcasts,", "cites": [{"id": 795971415, "item_id": 49748213, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "by": "recvonline", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks", "excerpt": "* Kavita: eBooks and Comics * Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows * Seafile: Hosting my private files * AdGuard Home: DNS/Ad blocking for all my devices * Vaultwarden: Passwords * Immich: For my photos * Plausible: Analytics * Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks * Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr + Transmission * Radicale: Calendar + Contacts * HedgeDoc: For my Markdown files LLMs made it REALLY easy to setup a self hosting server and mainta", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?"}, {"id": 783870003, "item_id": 48991875, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991875", "by": "petepete", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audioookshelf for audiobooks and podcasts", "excerpt": "I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family. I only use it for movies and TV shows though, the live TV experience (with a HDHomeRun) was incredibly buggy and slow, and once you've tried it and failed, it seems like it's impossible to remove the remnants of it from your interface. The music and audiobook support never felt like it was as pol", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and podcasts", "switched_from": "Jellyfin", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 790850912, "item_id": 49428182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428182", "by": "BloodyIron", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf.", "excerpt": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf. Don't let the name fool you, it does a lot! I use it for podcasts, audio books, & ebooks. It's great!", "context": "", "use_case": "podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 764074273, "item_id": 47754642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754642", "by": "hemant6488", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server", "excerpt": "Building SoundLeaf (https://soundleafapp.com) - a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server. The whole thing started because my wife couldn't get into the official Audiobookshelf iOS TestFlight beta. Her exact words were \"I cannot live without audiobooks.\" I'm a backend dev, never touched iOS or Swift before, but how hard could it be? (It was quite hard.) About a year in now. CarPlay, off", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted audiobook server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}]}, {"text": " often running it alongside Jellyfin and Immich on a home server.", "cites": [{"id": 800240771, "item_id": 50015048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015048", "by": "agnishom", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge", "excerpt": "I use such a computer to expose services from my home server. You can do this using tailscale or even rathole. (Sadly, I don't have access to the router to port forward packets to my home server directly.) Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge, Tailscale (for exit nodes, among other things) Other stuff I want to host but not yet: Immich, Vaultwarden, Hister, Archibebox, CopyParty", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 795971415, "item_id": 49748213, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "by": "recvonline", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks", "excerpt": "* Kavita: eBooks and Comics * Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows * Seafile: Hosting my private files * AdGuard Home: DNS/Ad blocking for all my devices * Vaultwarden: Passwords * Immich: For my photos * Plausible: Analytics * Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks * Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr + Transmission * Radicale: Calendar + Contacts * HedgeDoc: For my Markdown files LLMs made it REALLY easy to setup a self hosting server and mainta", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?"}, {"id": 748544465, "item_id": 46784029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784029", "by": "constantinum", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf", "excerpt": "MonicaHQ Audiobookshelf Ghost crm Immich for photo hosting Mattermost Matomo", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's your favorite self-hosted application?"}, {"id": 783870003, "item_id": 48991875, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991875", "by": "petepete", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audioookshelf for audiobooks and podcasts", "excerpt": "I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family. I only use it for movies and TV shows though, the live TV experience (with a HDHomeRun) was incredibly buggy and slow, and once you've tried it and failed, it seems like it's impossible to remove the remnants of it from your interface. The music and audiobook support never felt like it was as pol", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and podcasts", "switched_from": "Jellyfin", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}]}, {"text": " The main caveats are weak ebook handling", "cites": [{"id": 790852624, "item_id": 49428289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428289", "by": "rfarley04", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks. And I currently use it for my epubs, but it does not handle that particularly well. It doesn't save progress consistently and the UI for page flipping leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely going to check out how OP's library works", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and epubs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}]}, {"text": " and an official iOS app that one commenter's household could not get into through its TestFlight beta,", "cites": [{"id": 764074273, "item_id": 47754642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754642", "by": "hemant6488", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server", "excerpt": "Building SoundLeaf (https://soundleafapp.com) - a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server. The whole thing started because my wife couldn't get into the official Audiobookshelf iOS TestFlight beta. Her exact words were \"I cannot live without audiobooks.\" I'm a backend dev, never touched iOS or Swift before, but how hard could it be? (It was quite hard.) About a year in now. CarPlay, off", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted audiobook server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}]}, {"text": " while one Plex switcher called it crap.", "cites": [{"id": 793681635, "item_id": 49605102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605102", "by": "VladVladikoff", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I switched to audiobookshelf for my audiobooks and I have to say it\u2019s also crap.", "excerpt": "I switched to jellyfin about 6 months ago and I can say it is definitely worse. I\u2019m constantly fighting to fix thumbnails, fix episodes to be in the same show, force rescans to get it to even recognize a show that already exists. I never had any of these problems with plex. Plex also defaults to transcoding which fixes a lot of gaps with clients that don\u2019t support certain codecs. I\u2019m often running into issues where i", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "Plex", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Audiobook server", "summary": "Commenters list it as their go-to self-hosted app for audiobooks.", "quotes": [{"id": 795971415, "item_id": 49748213, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "by": "recvonline", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks", "excerpt": "* Kavita: eBooks and Comics * Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows * Seafile: Hosting my private files * AdGuard Home: DNS/Ad blocking for all my devices * Vaultwarden: Passwords * Immich: For my photos * Plausible: Analytics * Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks * Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr + Transmission * Radicale: Calendar + Contacts * HedgeDoc: For my Markdown files LLMs made it REALLY easy to setup a self hosting server and mainta", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?"}, {"id": 790852624, "item_id": 49428289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428289", "by": "rfarley04", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks. And I currently use it for my epubs, but it does not handle that particularly well. It doesn't save progress consistently and the UI for page flipping leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely going to check out how OP's library works", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and epubs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 752744328, "item_id": 47046520, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046520", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf - Audiobooks", "excerpt": "I personally tend to own two Phones. One all-day carry GrapheneOS device (Pixel 8) and an older WiFi and at home only iPhone for all payment and ensurance stuff. This is inconvenient in some ways, but at least it is sort of privacy as good as it gets while still being able to run official apps when I need them at home. To de-google the phone, I use F-Droid as primary App store, Aurora as fallback for non-f-droid Apps", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "GrapheneOS \u2013 Break Free from Google and Apple"}]}, {"label": "Self-hosted stack", "summary": "It often appears in lists of services commenters run on their home servers.", "quotes": [{"id": 800240771, "item_id": 50015048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015048", "by": "agnishom", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge", "excerpt": "I use such a computer to expose services from my home server. You can do this using tailscale or even rathole. (Sadly, I don't have access to the router to port forward packets to my home server directly.) Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge, Tailscale (for exit nodes, among other things) Other stuff I want to host but not yet: Immich, Vaultwarden, Hister, Archibebox, CopyParty", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 748544465, "item_id": 46784029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784029", "by": "constantinum", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf", "excerpt": "MonicaHQ Audiobookshelf Ghost crm Immich for photo hosting Mattermost Matomo", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's your favorite self-hosted application?"}, {"id": 795971415, "item_id": 49748213, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "by": "recvonline", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks", "excerpt": "* Kavita: eBooks and Comics * Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows * Seafile: Hosting my private files * AdGuard Home: DNS/Ad blocking for all my devices * Vaultwarden: Passwords * Immich: For my photos * Plausible: Analytics * Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks * Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr + Transmission * Radicale: Calendar + Contacts * HedgeDoc: For my Markdown files LLMs made it REALLY easy to setup a self hosting server and mainta", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?"}]}, {"label": "Podcasts too", "summary": "Commenters use it for podcasts as well as audiobooks, and one also uses it for ebooks.", "quotes": [{"id": 783870003, "item_id": 48991875, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991875", "by": "petepete", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audioookshelf for audiobooks and podcasts", "excerpt": "I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family. I only use it for movies and TV shows though, the live TV experience (with a HDHomeRun) was incredibly buggy and slow, and once you've tried it and failed, it seems like it's impossible to remove the remnants of it from your interface. The music and audiobook support never felt like it was as pol", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and podcasts", "switched_from": "Jellyfin", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 790850912, "item_id": 49428182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428182", "by": "BloodyIron", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf.", "excerpt": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf. Don't let the name fool you, it does a lot! I use it for podcasts, audio books, & ebooks. It's great!", "context": "", "use_case": "podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}]}, {"label": "Solid", "summary": "Commenters call it solid and say they are fans.", "quotes": [{"id": 744418432, "item_id": 46526152, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46526152", "by": "Aluminum0643", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid", "excerpt": "Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid: https://www.audiobookshelf.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of the Fin 2026-01-06 \u2013 Jellyfin"}, {"id": 790850912, "item_id": 49428182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428182", "by": "BloodyIron", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf.", "excerpt": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf. Don't let the name fool you, it does a lot! I use it for podcasts, audio books, & ebooks. It's great!", "context": "", "use_case": "podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}]}, {"label": "Android app", "summary": "One commenter recommends its app for audiobook playback on Android.", "quotes": [{"id": 778661426, "item_id": 48666339, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48666339", "by": "flatline", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Apple Books or Plappa on iOS, or Audiobookshelf on Android.", "excerpt": "Thanks for checking it out! The Alice link is a generated m4b, so it\u2019s sample output that you could likely play back directly in your browser, although that may not have the cover display or chapter listing. I recommend Apple Books or Plappa on iOS, or Audiobookshelf on Android. For desktop, VLC still rules the day for general media playback, but Audibly is a Windows app that has good reviews. There are many public d", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook playback on Android", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: eBook to audiobook narration with realistic AI voices"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Ebook support", "summary": "One user says it handles epubs poorly, with inconsistent progress saving and a weak page-flipping UI.", "quotes": [{"id": 790852624, "item_id": 49428289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428289", "by": "rfarley04", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks. And I currently use it for my epubs, but it does not handle that particularly well. It doesn't save progress consistently and the UI for page flipping leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely going to check out how OP's library works", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and epubs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}]}, {"label": "iOS access", "summary": "One commenter's wife could not get into the official iOS TestFlight beta, so he built a third-party client.", "quotes": [{"id": 764074273, "item_id": 47754642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754642", "by": "hemant6488", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server", "excerpt": "Building SoundLeaf (https://soundleafapp.com) - a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server. The whole thing started because my wife couldn't get into the official Audiobookshelf iOS TestFlight beta. Her exact words were \"I cannot live without audiobooks.\" I'm a backend dev, never touched iOS or Swift before, but how hard could it be? (It was quite hard.) About a year in now. CarPlay, off", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted audiobook server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}]}, {"label": "Quality complaints", "summary": "One user who left Plex called it crap.", "quotes": [{"id": 793681635, "item_id": 49605102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605102", "by": "VladVladikoff", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I switched to audiobookshelf for my audiobooks and I have to say it\u2019s also crap.", "excerpt": "I switched to jellyfin about 6 months ago and I can say it is definitely worse. I\u2019m constantly fighting to fix thumbnails, fix episodes to be in the same show, force rescans to get it to even recognize a show that already exists. I never had any of these problems with plex. Plex also defaults to transcoding which fixes a lot of gaps with clients that don\u2019t support certain codecs. I\u2019m often running into issues where i", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "Plex", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}]}], "who": [{"by": "recvonline", "context": "self-hoster", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "date": "2026-09-17"}], "tags": ["self-hostable", "for audiobooks", "for podcasts", "for home servers", "for Android users"], "use_cases": ["audiobooks", "audiobook hosting", "audiobooks and epubs", "podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks", "audiobooks and podcasts", "audiobook playback on android"], "compared": [{"slug": "jellyfin", "name": "Jellyfin", "co": 4, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "immich", "name": "Immich", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "plex", "name": "Plex", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vlc", "name": "VLC", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427001", "title": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985548", "title": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49746527", "title": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49604861", "title": "Jellyfin 12.0", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48986091", "title": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48661083", "title": "Show HN: eBook to audiobook narration with realistic AI voices", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-09": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800240771, "item_id": 50015048, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015048", "by": "agnishom", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge", "excerpt": "I use such a computer to expose services from my home server. You can do this using tailscale or even rathole. (Sadly, I don't have access to the router to port forward packets to my home server directly.) Things I like to host: Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf, Karakeep, Deluge, Tailscale (for exit nodes, among other things) Other stuff I want to host but not yet: Immich, Vaultwarden, Hister, Archibebox, CopyParty", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 795971415, "item_id": 49748213, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49748213", "by": "recvonline", "date": "2026-09-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks", "excerpt": "* Kavita: eBooks and Comics * Jellyfin: Movies and TV Shows * Seafile: Hosting my private files * AdGuard Home: DNS/Ad blocking for all my devices * Vaultwarden: Passwords * Immich: For my photos * Plausible: Analytics * Audiobookshelf: Audiobooks * Radarr/Sonarr/Prowlarr + Transmission * Radicale: Calendar + Contacts * HedgeDoc: For my Markdown files LLMs made it REALLY easy to setup a self hosting server and mainta", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What self-hosted apps do you use daily?"}, {"id": 793681635, "item_id": 49605102, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605102", "by": "VladVladikoff", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I switched to audiobookshelf for my audiobooks and I have to say it\u2019s also crap.", "excerpt": "I switched to jellyfin about 6 months ago and I can say it is definitely worse. I\u2019m constantly fighting to fix thumbnails, fix episodes to be in the same show, force rescans to get it to even recognize a show that already exists. I never had any of these problems with plex. Plex also defaults to transcoding which fixes a lot of gaps with clients that don\u2019t support certain codecs. I\u2019m often running into issues where i", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "Plex", "story": "Jellyfin 12.0"}, {"id": 790852624, "item_id": 49428289, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428289", "by": "rfarley04", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I absolutely love audiobookshelf for audiobooks. And I currently use it for my epubs, but it does not handle that particularly well. It doesn't save progress consistently and the UI for page flipping leaves a lot to be desired. Definitely going to check out how OP's library works", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and epubs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 790850912, "item_id": 49428182, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428182", "by": "BloodyIron", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf.", "excerpt": "I'm a fan of audiobookshelf. Don't let the name fool you, it does a lot! I use it for podcasts, audio books, & ebooks. It's great!", "context": "", "use_case": "podcasts, audiobooks, ebooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 783870003, "item_id": 48991875, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991875", "by": "petepete", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audioookshelf for audiobooks and podcasts", "excerpt": "I've used Jellyfin for years and my experience is currently incredibly smooth and works like a dream for the whole family. I only use it for movies and TV shows though, the live TV experience (with a HDHomeRun) was incredibly buggy and slow, and once you've tried it and failed, it seems like it's impossible to remove the remnants of it from your interface. The music and audiobook support never felt like it was as pol", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks and podcasts", "switched_from": "Jellyfin", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 778661426, "item_id": 48666339, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48666339", "by": "flatline", "date": "2026-06-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Apple Books or Plappa on iOS, or Audiobookshelf on Android.", "excerpt": "Thanks for checking it out! The Alice link is a generated m4b, so it\u2019s sample output that you could likely play back directly in your browser, although that may not have the cover display or chapter listing. I recommend Apple Books or Plappa on iOS, or Audiobookshelf on Android. For desktop, VLC still rules the day for general media playback, but Audibly is a Windows app that has good reviews. There are many public d", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook playback on Android", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: eBook to audiobook narration with realistic AI voices"}, {"id": 764074273, "item_id": 47754642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754642", "by": "hemant6488", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server", "excerpt": "Building SoundLeaf (https://soundleafapp.com) - a native iOS client for Audiobookshelf, the self-hosted audiobook server. The whole thing started because my wife couldn't get into the official Audiobookshelf iOS TestFlight beta. Her exact words were \"I cannot live without audiobooks.\" I'm a backend dev, never touched iOS or Swift before, but how hard could it be? (It was quite hard.) About a year in now. CarPlay, off", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted audiobook server", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}, {"id": 752744328, "item_id": 47046520, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47046520", "by": "sandreas", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf - Audiobooks", "excerpt": "I personally tend to own two Phones. One all-day carry GrapheneOS device (Pixel 8) and an older WiFi and at home only iPhone for all payment and ensurance stuff. This is inconvenient in some ways, but at least it is sort of privacy as good as it gets while still being able to run official apps when I need them at home. To de-google the phone, I use F-Droid as primary App store, Aurora as fallback for non-f-droid Apps", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobooks", "switched_from": "", "story": "GrapheneOS \u2013 Break Free from Google and Apple"}, {"id": 748544465, "item_id": 46784029, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784029", "by": "constantinum", "date": "2026-01-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Audiobookshelf", "excerpt": "MonicaHQ Audiobookshelf Ghost crm Immich for photo hosting Mattermost Matomo", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's your favorite self-hosted application?"}, {"id": 744418432, "item_id": 46526152, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46526152", "by": "Aluminum0643", "date": "2026-01-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid", "excerpt": "Check out audiobookshelf, it's quite solid: https://www.audiobookshelf.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "audiobook hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "State of the Fin 2026-01-06 \u2013 Jellyfin"}]}