Host Calibre-Web without installing anything
The web front end of your Calibre library: browse it, read in the browser, and send a book to your e-reader without plugging in a cable.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
Calibre-Web installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. Your digital library in the browser: browse it, read online and send your books to an e-reader. It handles metadata and cover art. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory, against a theoretical minimum of 512 MB. At rest Calibre-Web uses almost nothing: it is a Python application serving files that are already there. The peak comes at conversion time, when an EPUB has to become a format a Kindle can read, and at the first indexing of a library of several thousand titles. We would rather quote the plan that absorbs both of those moments.
Calibre-Web sits on top of an existing Calibre library — the familiar metadata.db file and the author folders around it. You copy across the library you already keep, and everything is there: covers, series, tags, ratings. The day you leave there is nothing to export, because nothing was transformed: those are your files, in Calibre's own tree.
What managed hosting changes
A reader inside the browser
EPUB, PDF, CBZ, CBR, TXT, FB2 and DJVU open straight in the page, with nothing to install. Reading position is remembered, which is enough to pick a chapter back up on another machine.
Send to Kindle, sync with a Kobo
One button emails the book to your Kindle address, converting it to the right format on the way. For a Kobo reader, Calibre-Web speaks the maker's own sync protocol: the device updates itself over Wi-Fi.
An OPDS feed for reading apps
The catalogue is published as OPDS, the format understood by KOReader, Moon+ Reader, Aldiko or Marvin. The reading app browses your library and downloads the chosen book, with no store in the middle.
Metadata, series and per-reader shelves
Title, author, series, cover and tags are corrected from the browser, and records are completed from Google Books or ComicVine. Every account has its own shelves and rights: read only, download, upload or edit.
Why hand it over rather than install it
Someone with three thousand EPUBs on a disk
The Calibre library patiently tidied over ten years becomes reachable from the phone, from work and from the e-reader, without copying it three times or syncing it by hand.
A household with two e-readers of different makes
The Kindle receives books by email, the Kobo syncs over Wi-Fi, and nobody has to plug anything into the computer in the living room.
A teacher making set texts available
Each pupil gets an account with the right to download, not to edit. One shelf per class, and the books on the syllabus are there instead of circulating as attachments.
A comics reader
CBZ and CBR files open page by page in the built-in reader, which saves installing yet another app just to work through a series.
A community library
Members borrow from a browser, with no software to install and no account to create with a publisher. Shelves act as sections, and permissions tell the volunteer from the reader.
A personal library that stays in France
The instance runs in our own infrastructure in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and the automatic backup kept for 14 days restores from the client area.
Frequently asked questions
That is the normal case: Calibre-Web reads a Calibre library, meaning a metadata.db file with its folders around it. You can start from an empty library and upload books through the browser, but if you already keep one, copy it across: covers, series and tags all follow. One piece of advice: do not open the same library in desktop Calibre while Calibre-Web is working on it, as both write to the same metadata file.
For a Kindle, you set an outgoing mail server and the reader's Kindle address: the send button mails the file, converted to the expected format if needed. For a Kobo, Calibre-Web implements the maker's sync protocol and the device updates over Wi-Fi just as it would against the store. For everything else there is the OPDS feed or a plain download.
For reading, searching, fixing a record, tidying a series and sending a book to an e-reader, yes, and it is more convenient from a browser. For bulk work — converting several hundred files, plugins, awkward metadata operations — desktop Calibre remains the tool for the heavy lifting. The two complement each other rather than replace each other.
Nothing. You choose the application, fill in the two or three fields it asks for, and it goes online; the address and credentials arrive by email. The recommended plan for Calibre-Web is App Essentiel, at €4.99/month incl. VAT with 2 GB of memory, and it can be changed later without reinstalling.
Yes, they are part of the service. A self-hosted application left un-updated is a security risk, not a saving. Version upgrades are applied and checked by us, with a backup kept for 14 days so you can roll back from the client area.