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Comment by theshrike79 | Hacker News Reader

Calibre is IMO best used in a Docker container, set it up once and then forget it.

Drop your books in a directory on your NAS, let Calibre pick them up from there and do your actual processing with Calibre-web.

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I'm repeatedly telling myself to do that because I've ended up having multiple copies of the same documents scattered over different devices instead of centralizing my calibre instance. When I considered doing that on fated weekend I abandoned the idea under the impression of not having the possibility of sync reading position, annotations on PDFs and most importantly lacking the support for my e-book... though most likely I simply missed the finer details on how to do all of that

I think you can use Calibre-web as a "store" for Kobo devices pretty easily (basically swap one URL in a config file on the device).

I gave up on the synced reading position at the same time I sold my Kindle, but I can live with that.

Getting stuff on the device is a bit of a hassle too, because I can't exactly go plug it in to my NAS, but exporting 50+ books to a directory and copying them manually takes a few minutes and I'm set for a year or more - so it's time well spent :D

Having everything (except for comics) consolidated in one place is the main reason I tolerate Calibre's quirks and eccentricities. It's ... opinionated, but it's still by far the best tool available for the price.

If true this would be a huge reason to get a kobo over a kindle. I use calibre and have owned multiple kindle and just plug in once every few months to copy books over usb.

Kobo Sync as it's called in the documentation (https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio...) works very well, and is very easily enabled (updating a single line in a config file on the ereader that appears when you mount it on your computer).

It will convert books to Kepub automatically and you can select to only sync certain shelfs.

nice to know! would be great to have some similar degree of support for boox devices but I gather it would be much more fiddly

> Getting stuff on the device is a bit of a hassle too, because I can't exactly go plug it in to my NAS

Kobo can connect to Dropbox. They hide the option on older models but you can re-enable it with NickelMenu[1]. If you don’t want the Dropbox app installed on your machine, you can use Rclone[2] to sync files to it on demand. With a bit more setup, you can even set up Rclone on the Kobo itself and trigger it via NickelMenu to pull new books. This last part is a bit more involved.

[1] https://pgaskin.net/NickelMenu/

[2] https://rclone.org/

What's the benefit to putting it in a docker container?

Yeah I see no benefit here. The benefit they're referring to is pointing to a separate library location, but that can be done using the normal app.

Because then I can store all the books on my NAS and easily share the Calibre library with calibre-web, which again is accessible from the internet.

I could install it on my laptop, but then nobody else could access it when it's in my backpack :D

But why containerise it on your NAS?

Why add docker overhead, if you can just natively install it like any other software?

I think the OP was unclear. He is suggesting running it on a NAS or similar, storing the files on network storage and then simply being able to use calibre-web instead of having to install it on different devices.

For any newbies, this is not a panacea. Calibre Web is vastly more restricted in functionality.

> For any newbies, this is not a panacea. Calibre Web is vastly more restricted in functionality.

It would be helpful to point out what functionality is missing for readers, it fits my base case so would be interested to know cases are missing for you.

I'm not aware of any documentation which lists this so I used ChatGPT to help me compile a quick list. I took a quick look and it looks accurate, but of course there might be inaccuracies.

1. E-Book Editing – Calibre-Web does not include the advanced eBook editing tools available in Calibre, such as the eBook editor for EPUB and AZW3 formats.

2. E-Book Conversion – The ability to convert between different eBook formats (e.g., EPUB to MOBI) is missing.

3. Metadata Download & Management – While you can edit metadata in Calibre-Web, it lacks Calibre’s ability to fetch metadata and covers from online sources automatically.

4. Advanced Plugin Support – The desktop version supports third-party plugins that extend its functionality (e.g., DeDRM tools, additional format conversions, etc.), which are not available in Calibre-Web.

5. News Fetching – Calibre can download and convert news feeds (RSS) into eBooks automatically, a feature missing in Calibre-Web.

6. Full Device Integration – The desktop app allows direct connection and syncing with eReaders (Kindle, Kobo, etc.), while Calibre-Web is limited to wireless downloads.

7. Bulk Import & Export – You cannot bulk import/export large numbers of books via Calibre-Web as efficiently as with the desktop version.

8. Virtual Libraries & Custom Columns – While basic library browsing is supported, advanced sorting, searching, and virtual library features are more limited in Calibre-Web.

9. DRM Management – If you use Calibre with DeDRM plugins, these do not work in Calibre-Web.

10. Built-in Viewer for Some Formats – Calibre-Web supports reading EPUB and PDF files in the browser but lacks the extensive format support of Calibre’s built-in viewer (which can handle MOBI, AZW3, CBZ, CBR, etc.).

So then both of your replies are null because you have no idea?

Your first reply gave the caveat that there are severe limitations as a warning to "newbies". Definitely, it's an extension wrapper around calibre binaries and the db to make it a little easier to access across a local network. But you don't have specific examples for yourself and only something pulled from ChatGPT which is not even correct, some of those items are simply outdated/madeup.

> So then both of your replies are null because you have no idea?

I don't see how you could surmise that a list of 10 major differences is the same as "no idea." You seem personally or emotionally invested in the web interface being on par with the main app. I don't know why, and it's weird. Either you have experience with this interface and you were looking for a fight, or you have no experience and you're asking for third party audits which you know you'll never get, so you're looking for a fight. I'm not biting. Either way, I hope others are informed by my comment.

You pasted something from ChatGPT that includes incorrect information. In general and especially on HN folks don’t appreciate LLM dribble. I have no feelings in this just calling out your worthless posts. Since you had such a strong opinion I asked what in your experience made it so negative as the web client is really there to make it easy to browse and download books onto a reader, which it does. Of course it does not replace calibre, you can see all the functionality in like 5 screenshots.

Again no feelings but I have no issue calling out folks like yourself that try to give an opinion and then actually have no real world experience with it.

I can, but don't want to run it on my desktop or laptop. Then it's not available when either is turned off.

I have three calibre instances. One one my desktop as it's always turned on. One on my home server, where it serves as a content server. One on my laptop if I'm away from home. I use rsync (Easy to get conflicts with Syncthing) to propagate changes.

When I'm on the laptop and I get some new ebooks, I just put them in a staging folder that I push over to the desktop over sftp. I may also add them to the laptop's instance and rsync the folder, but I tried to only add books to the desktop instance.

I used flat folder organization on my ereader and don't use calibre to transfer files to it. Mostly because I use koreader, which doesn't scan the storage. Also, I have my whole library on the device, so calibre is there for backup and cleaning.

I use google drive with my Kobo, just drop the files there and its synced over wifi. Am I missing out on something with Calibre?

Calibre can update the metadata on your books semi-automatically. Grab hi-res covers, get the back cover texts, mark the book as a part of a series (and which number it is).

It can also automatically convert the books to different optimised formats, for example: you don't need a 4000x3000 resolution full colour front cover if you're uploading the book to a 6" BW eInk reader.

Also Kobo has their own "KEPUB" format that is optimised for their devices and converting standard EPUB to that format results in faster page turns etc.

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