About Grimmory
Grimmory is a digital library you host yourself, built for avid readers. It organizes ebooks, comics and audiobooks on your own server, with a web interface for browsing, searching and reading, so your collection is not locked inside a single vendor's store or app.
Features include smart shelves that filter by rules and tags and support full-text search, and metadata lookup that pulls covers, descriptions, reviews and ratings from Google Books, Open Library and Amazon, all of which can be edited. A built-in reader displays PDF, EPUB and comic files inside the browser, with support for annotations, highlights and progress tracking. Devices can sync through Kobo, any OPDS-compatible app or KOReader, and multiple users can have separate shelves. Topics list many formats and OIDC sign-in.
Grimmory is built with Java and Angular, licensed under AGPL-3.0, and documented with a quick start guide and Discord community. It suits book collectors and households that want a private, shared reading library.
Key features
- Smart shelves with rule-based filtering
- Metadata lookup from Google Books and Open Library
- In-browser reader with annotations
- Kobo, OPDS and KOReader sync
- Separate shelves per user
- Support for EPUB, PDF and comic formats
Good fit for
- →Hosting a household ebook library
- →Reading and syncing comics across devices
- Tags
- ebooks
- library
- comics
- audiobooks
- self-hosted
- opds
- epub
- reader
Grimmory: questions and answers
- What is Grimmory used for?
- Grimmory is a self-hosted digital library for ebooks, comics and audiobooks, with smart shelves, metadata lookup, a built-in reader and device sync. It is a good fit for hosting a household ebook library, and reading and syncing comics across devices.
- Is Grimmory open source?
- Yes. Grimmory is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at grimmory-tools/grimmory and is written mainly in Java.
- Is Grimmory free?
- Yes. Grimmory is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host Grimmory?
- Yes. Grimmory can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
- What is Grimmory an alternative to?
- Grimmory is an open-source alternative to Audible, Everand, Storytel and Libro.fm. Other open-source alternatives to Audible include Audiobookshelf.
- Is Grimmory actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Grimmory was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.5.0, published on 21 September 2026. The project has 4.5k stars on GitHub.
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