# Alternatives to Calibre The ebook library Swiss-army knife. Calibre ranks #1 of 8 in Ebook readers, with an Alt Score of 90. It is licensed under GPL-3.0, free from Free and available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. 9 of 9 checklist rows are verified against a public source. Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/calibre/ Category: Ebook readers ## Where Calibre stands out - **Formats (EPUB, PDF, MOBI, CBZ)** — 4 of 8 apps with a verified answer have this ## Overview - **Who it's for**: Readers with large personal e-book collections who want a single desktop application to organize, convert, and manage titles across multiple formats and devices. - **What you get**: A library manager that catalogs e-books with searchable metadata (covers, tags, series, ratings), converts between formats like EPUB, MOBI, PDF, and AZW3, and includes a built-in e-book viewer and editor for tweaking content and metadata. It can also fetch news from websites and convert it into e-book form for offline reading. Calibre is free, open-source, and available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. - **How it works**: You add e-books to your calibre library, where it automatically extracts and lets you edit metadata; from there you convert files to the format your device needs and connect an e-reader via USB or Wi-Fi to sync the library directly to it. ## Profile - **License**: GPL-3.0 (verified 2026-07-10) - **Pricing model**: Free (verified 2026-07-10) - **Starts at**: Free (verified 2026-07-10) - **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android - **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-10) ## Ranked alternatives | # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms | |---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------| | 1 | [Moon+ Reader](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/moon-reader.md) | 90 | Proprietary | Android | | 2 | [KOReader](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/koreader.md) | 80 | AGPL-3.0 | Android, Linux | | 3 | [Librera](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/librera.md) | 80 | GPL-3.0 | Android, macOS | | 4 | [Apple Books](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/apple-books.md) | 75 | ? | iOS, macOS | | 5 | [Google Play Books](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/google-play-books.md) | 75 | Proprietary | Android, iOS, Web | | 6 | [Kindle](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/kindle.md) | 75 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android | | 7 | [ReadEra](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/readera.md) | 35 | Proprietary | Android | Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/ ## Feature comparison Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified). | Ebook readers checklist | Calibre | Moon+ Reader | KOReader | Librera | Apple Books | Google Play Books | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | Free | Freemium | Free | Freemium | Free | Freemium | | Starts at | Free | ? | Free | ? | Free | Free | | License | GPL-3.0 | Proprietary | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 | ? | Proprietary | | Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Android | Android, Linux | Android, macOS | iOS, macOS | Android, iOS, Web | | Formats (EPUB, PDF, MOBI, CBZ) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | | Sync position across devices | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Annotation & highlights export | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | | Dictionaries | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | OPDS support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | | Text-to-speech | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Page turn customization | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | | Library management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | DRM support | No | No | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | ## Sources Sources for Calibre. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **Starts at**: Free — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “It's also completely free and open source and great for both casual users and computer experts.” - **License**: GPL-3.0 — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3, 29 June 2007” - **Pricing model**: Free — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “It's also completely free and open source and great for both casual users and computer experts.” - **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Windows, macOS, Linux, Portable, Android, Apple iOS” - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “9.11, released on 02 Jul, 2026” - **Formats (EPUB, PDF, MOBI, CBZ)**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “AZW, AZW3, AZW4, CBZ, CBR, CB7, CBC, CHM, DJVU, DOCX, EPUB, FB2, FBZ, HTML, HTMLZ, KEPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ” - **Sync position across devices**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “If you leave the Content server running, you can even open the same book on multiple devices and it will remember your last read position.” - **Annotation & highlights export**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “You can click the highlight button in that bar to create a highlight. You can add notes and change the color of the highlight.” - **Dictionaries**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “You can look up the meaning of words in the current book by double clicking or long tapping the word you want to lookup and then clicking the lookup button that looks like a library.” - **OPDS support**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Advertise the OPDS feeds via the BonJour service, so that OPDS based reading apps can detect and connect to the server automatically.” - **Text-to-speech**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “The viewer can read book text aloud. To use it you can simply click the Read aloud button in the viewer controls to start reading book text aloud.” - **Page turn customization**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “You can change the number of pages displayed on the screen as well as page margins in Page layout in the viewer preferences.” - **Library management**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “calibre allows you to create as many libraries as you wish” - **DRM support**: No — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Most purchased EPUB books have DRM. This prevents calibre from opening them.” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/