{"slug": "bookorbit", "name": "BookOrbit", "category": "selfhosted", "category_name": "Self-hosted and home server", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.876, "rising": 2.67, "first": "2026-07-21", "latest": "2026-08-25", "why": "BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks.", "icon": true, "domain": "bookorbit.app", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://bookorbit.app", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["BookOrbit"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 790941216, "item_id": 49433826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433826", "by": "edsimpson", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from Grimmory to BookOrbit due to the lower resource usage and absolutely love it.", "excerpt": "I moved from Grimmory to BookOrbit due to the lower resource usage and absolutely love it. https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1tqia6s/i_benchmarked_6_selfhosted_book_server_apps_up_to/", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted ebook server", "switched_from": "Grimmory", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 790907824, "item_id": 49431739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49431739", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019m a huge fan of bookorbit, especially when paired with KOReader. It\u2019s been, bar none, the best reading experience.", "excerpt": "I\u2019m a huge fan of bookorbit, especially when paired with KOReader. It\u2019s been, bar none, the best reading experience. I love having my highlights saved in software I control and can do whatever I want with. Currently I have multiple e-ink displays around my house that rotate a book quote from my highlights once a day. I love seeing the highlights and I love knowing the whole pipeline is open source.", "context": "", "use_case": "ebook library and highlights", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 790848848, "item_id": 49428053, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428053", "by": "robbiet480", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I haven't spent much time with calibre-web in a long time but can confidently say BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks. The ecosystem of apps that work with it is growing quick too, Apogee for iOS being a standout for me. They recently added readaloud support (like Amazon Whispersync or Storyteller) natively in the app, which I", "context": "happy user, no affiliation", "use_case": "books and audiobooks library", "switched_from": "calibre-web", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 785560944, "item_id": 49097559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49097559", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ability to use things like BookOrbit (or alternatives) to manage your books and sync your progress/stats.", "excerpt": "- Better and faster UI. I always thought the Kindle was just slow, nope, it's just really bad software - Customise any/everything. Font size, line spacing, paragraph spacing, margins, header/footer content, the list goes on - Ability to use things like BookOrbit (or alternatives) to manage your books and sync your progress/stats. - LLM-integration through plugins like KOAssistant, highlight a word/phrase/passage to g", "context": "", "use_case": "book management and sync", "switched_from": "", "story": "KOReader"}, {"id": 785532816, "item_id": 49095801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095801", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With BookOrbit tracking my reading/annotations and providing my ebooks I\u2019ve reached my perfect reading setup.", "excerpt": "KOReader + BookOrbit (or Calibe or whatever you like best) is awesome. KOReader is finicky to configure but once you have it set up its hands down the best experience. I use BookShelf as my main UI and BookEnds to configure the header/footer. I also use KOAssistant which lets you select text and chuck it at an LLM to explain/translate/custom-prompt/etc. It was so nice when reading the Horatio Hornblower series where ", "context": "", "use_case": "ebook library and reading tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "More Tailscale tricks for your jailbroken Kindle"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "robbiet480", "context": "happy user, no affiliation", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428053", "date": "2026-08-25"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["self-hosted ebook server", "ebook library and highlights", "books and audiobooks library", "book management and sync", "ebook library and reading tracking", "ebook sync and management"], "compared": [{"slug": "grimmory", "name": "Grimmory", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "calibre-web", "name": "Calibre-Web", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "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": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095865", "title": "KOReader", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093569", "title": "More Tailscale tricks for your jailbroken Kindle", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996318", "title": "Freeink: Open Ecosystem for E-Readers", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996236", "title": "AI Agent \u2013 TRMNL", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 790941216, "item_id": 49433826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433826", "by": "edsimpson", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from Grimmory to BookOrbit due to the lower resource usage and absolutely love it.", "excerpt": "I moved from Grimmory to BookOrbit due to the lower resource usage and absolutely love it. https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1tqia6s/i_benchmarked_6_selfhosted_book_server_apps_up_to/", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted ebook server", "switched_from": "Grimmory", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 790907824, "item_id": 49431739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49431739", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019m a huge fan of bookorbit, especially when paired with KOReader. It\u2019s been, bar none, the best reading experience.", "excerpt": "I\u2019m a huge fan of bookorbit, especially when paired with KOReader. It\u2019s been, bar none, the best reading experience. I love having my highlights saved in software I control and can do whatever I want with. Currently I have multiple e-ink displays around my house that rotate a book quote from my highlights once a day. I love seeing the highlights and I love knowing the whole pipeline is open source.", "context": "", "use_case": "ebook library and highlights", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 790848848, "item_id": 49428053, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428053", "by": "robbiet480", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks.", "excerpt": "I haven't spent much time with calibre-web in a long time but can confidently say BookOrbit blows it out of the water in terms of functionality. I love that I can have one app that handles books and audiobooks. The ecosystem of apps that work with it is growing quick too, Apogee for iOS being a standout for me. They recently added readaloud support (like Amazon Whispersync or Storyteller) natively in the app, which I", "context": "happy user, no affiliation", "use_case": "books and audiobooks library", "switched_from": "calibre-web", "story": "Bookshelf \u2013 Self-hosted eBook library that runs on object storage"}, {"id": 785560944, "item_id": 49097559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49097559", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Ability to use things like BookOrbit (or alternatives) to manage your books and sync your progress/stats.", "excerpt": "- Better and faster UI. I always thought the Kindle was just slow, nope, it's just really bad software - Customise any/everything. Font size, line spacing, paragraph spacing, margins, header/footer content, the list goes on - Ability to use things like BookOrbit (or alternatives) to manage your books and sync your progress/stats. - LLM-integration through plugins like KOAssistant, highlight a word/phrase/passage to g", "context": "", "use_case": "book management and sync", "switched_from": "", "story": "KOReader"}, {"id": 785532816, "item_id": 49095801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095801", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With BookOrbit tracking my reading/annotations and providing my ebooks I\u2019ve reached my perfect reading setup.", "excerpt": "KOReader + BookOrbit (or Calibe or whatever you like best) is awesome. KOReader is finicky to configure but once you have it set up its hands down the best experience. I use BookShelf as my main UI and BookEnds to configure the header/footer. I also use KOAssistant which lets you select text and chuck it at an LLM to explain/translate/custom-prompt/etc. It was so nice when reading the Horatio Hornblower series where ", "context": "", "use_case": "ebook library and reading tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "More Tailscale tricks for your jailbroken Kindle"}, {"id": 784114000, "item_id": 49007125, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49007125", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "KOReader paired with BookOrbit is my sweetspot and I love having all the data under my control.", "excerpt": "KOReader support (not just KOReader sync) has become my new line in the sand for an e-reader. I'm currently using my jailbroken Kindle PW5 and loving it. KOReader paired with BookOrbit is my sweetspot and I love having all the data under my control. If my Kindle died today I'd probably grab a Kobo and put KOReader on it. This project is very interesting to me but they seem to want to \"own\" the whole software stack, i", "context": "", "use_case": "ebook sync and management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Freeink: Open Ecosystem for E-Readers"}, {"id": 783973730, "item_id": 48998358, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998358", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "BookOrbit (open source ebook manager/reading tracking tool)", "excerpt": "I've been buying (2 so far) Seeed Studio reTerminal e-ink screens, flashing them with ESPHome, then using Claude Code to write backends to render out whatever I want to put on the screens (a la TRMNL, I also have a TRMNL). Being able to \"speak\" into existence what I want is pretty freaking awesome. Note: Yes, I know what I'm about to say could be done using TRMNL (as part of it) I was able to set it up so that it rot", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing highlights locally", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI Agent \u2013 TRMNL"}]}