It seems like thre are really only a couple of options, and I haven’t found many review or examples that show enough detail to compare them.
Jellyfin has a bookshelf plugin that seems to be able to handle it. Audiobooks look to be accessed through the main client app, and ebooks through a companion app like JellyBook, which also claims to handle audiobooks.
On the other hand, there is Audiobookshelf, which specializes in audiobooks, but also claims to host ebooks. It has a number of client apps, but none that I found mention eBook reading.
I’ve found a couple of other solutions that seem more specialized. Maybe one of those?
I want to be able to read and listen on an Android device, preferably with a native app. I have a few comics, but mostly interested in books and audiobooks. I already have a Jellyfin server setup.
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I think specific solutions for each type of content would be better in the long term if you have a lot of stuff to host, and management/organization will be better since they are catered to whatever the content type is.
Others have already said it, Audiobookshelf is a good one. For EBooks though, I would highly recommend Calibre Content server. Calibre is pretty much the defacto open source EBook manager out there, a lot of features and abilities specific to ereaders and ebooks of all formats.
Audiobookshelf for audiobooks, calibre-web for ebooks. Don’t try to get it to get one thing that does both well, you’re better off with two solutions that are both better at their respective thing.
I’ve read some places that Calibre can be finicky. Have you had to troubleshoot any issues with your deployment?
I just learned about it recently, and it looks really awesome. It does ebooks, audio, and both. It’s main feature is that you can read along with the audio, and it will highlight sentences as the audio goes.
Looks very cool! I don’t know that I have the resources for it on my little homelab but good to keep it in mind in the future.
Sounds like Jellfyfin+Jellybook is your winner then. The server portion of audiobook or ebook hosting isn’t going to be giving you any game changing features. They serve files.
The client you use is going to make or break your experience here, so just go with the easiest setup on the server side, and then run through some clients to see what works best.
For me, AudioBookShelf is the clear standout for audio books, and I ended up going with Kavita for ebooks.
Can I ask what stands out with Kavita that audiobookshelf lacks?
Kavita is for ebooks - it’s not perfect, has some weirdness with series sometimes because of it’s manga heritage.
Since they’re different applications entirely and you wouldn’t use the same client for each, I use Calibre as a kasmweb docker image for ebooks and enable OPDS for it to hook up with my FBreader app. Audiobooks are done with Audiobookshelf and outputs an RSS feed for Antennapod subscription.
I currently use antenna pod for listening to podcasts and I love it. Am I understanding correctly that you also use it for audiobooks? Does show each chapter as a separate episode or how does that work?
https://www.audiobookshelf.org/guides/rss_feeds/
So set the books up in a collection, and add each book. RSS the collection and each book shows up as an episode. I wouldn’t want chapters as episodes, that would be annoying usually.
I use abs and it’s great. My partner listens to audiobooks, I read ebooks. You just have them side by side in the library, and in the audiobookshelf android app you can choose between stream or read. You also don’t need to store them side by side, the metadata can put them together clientside anyway. I guess this would be the way to go if you thought you might try a diff ebook hosting service later.
If all you do with your ebooks is read them, I daresay you’ll have no issues because I haven’t. Supports volume controls for page turn and that’s all that I want.
Thanks, this is really helpful! Do you use the same app for both? Is it the abs client or something else?
I use the Audiobookshelf app from AdvPlyr on the play store. I’ve been meaning to try Lissen since it’s on F-Droid, but I tried this to make sure my partner didn’t have any issues.
If I’m using it on my PC I just connect to the web UI.
I connect on all my devices with tailscale. My partner uses the same but has apparently been having issues with her phone not being able to access the tailnet when not on the same LAN. It’s not so bad though, the Audiobookshelf app lets her download her books. This works better anyway, since she travels for work and often has no service anyway.
Re tailscale: not sure if it is a technical issue or not, but my wife found it helpful when I added a toggle to the Quick Settings menu, which shows when it is running and can restart it with one tap.
Oh! Appreciate the tip. I’ll investigate this weekend
I ended up spinning up audiobookshelf. It’s fine for audiobooks, and I immediately installed Lissen (alongside ABS) and it is clearly preferable to me.
Lissen does not recognize ebooks at all, and I also didn’t have success with the comic book I tested on the ABS client, so I may try another service for those. For now audiobooks are the higher priority and I am very happy with those. Thanks for the input - I really appreciate it.
No worries! I’ve used the calibre app for ebooks in the past and it does quite well.
I have used audiobook shelf to read a couple of PDF files. Seemed to work fine. I mostly use it for audio books.