What is Foliate used for?

Foliate is a GTK-based e-book reader for Linux that opens EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2 and comic book archives. It is a good fit for reading e-books on a Linux desktop and browsing OPDS libraries for new books.

Is Foliate open source?

Yes. Foliate is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at johnfactotum/foliate and is written mainly in JavaScript.

Yes. Foliate is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Foliate?

Yes. Foliate can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Foliate an alternative to?

Foliate is an open-source alternative to Kobo. Other open-source alternatives to Kobo include Grimmory, KOReader and Calibre-Web.

Is Foliate actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Foliate was on 8 April 2026, and the latest release is 3.3.0, published on 1 April 2025. The project has 8.8k stars on GitHub.

Foliate: open-source alternative to Kobo

About Foliate

Foliate is an e-book reader for the GNOME desktop, written in JavaScript with GJS, GTK4 and libadwaita. The tagline is to read books in style, and the project topics list the formats it handles, including EPUB, MOBI, AZW, AZW3, FB2 and CBZ comic archives, as well as OPDS catalogs for finding books.

It uses WebKitGTK to render book content. Optional extras include hyphenation rules for automatic hyphenation, speech-dispatcher with an output module such as espeak-ng for text to speech, and Tracker to follow the location of files. Foliate is licensed under GPL-3.0, and the latest release listed is 3.3.0.

Foliate is available on Flathub as a Flatpak, which is the simplest way to install it. It can also be built with Meson from the source tarball or a git clone that includes submodules, or run directly from the source tree for quick testing. The README lists the minimum versions of GJS, GTK4, libadwaita and WebKitGTK that are required.

Key features

Reads EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2 and CBZ
OPDS catalog support
Optional automatic hyphenation
Text to speech through speech-dispatcher
GTK4 and libadwaita interface
Available as a Flatpak on Flathub

Good fit for

→Reading e-books on a Linux desktop
→Browsing OPDS libraries for new books

Built with: JavaScript
Tags: ebook-reader; epub; gtk; linux; reader; mobi; opds; flatpak

Foliate: questions and answers

What is Foliate used for?: Foliate is a GTK-based e-book reader for Linux that opens EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2 and comic book archives. It is a good fit for reading e-books on a Linux desktop and browsing OPDS libraries for new books.
Is Foliate open source?: Yes. Foliate is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at johnfactotum/foliate and is written mainly in JavaScript.
Is Foliate free?: Yes. Foliate is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Foliate?: Yes. Foliate can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Foliate an alternative to?: Foliate is an open-source alternative to Kobo. Other open-source alternatives to Kobo include Grimmory, KOReader and Calibre-Web.
Is Foliate actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Foliate was on 8 April 2026, and the latest release is 3.3.0, published on 1 April 2025. The project has 8.8k stars on GitHub.