Open source · Self-hosted

Own your library, completely.

Beautiful book management you run on your own server — no subscriptions, no lock-in.

Get started

Why choose BookNook

Easy and Extensible

Get started with our docker image and extend it with your own customizations via the plugin system.

Comic and book support

Built-in comic support on top of our book support

Curated for You

Personalized recommendations based on your reading history and taste via included AI (Google Gemini) plugin

Plugin system

Make it yours,
drop in a folder.

BookNook's plugin API gives you the full server — a scoped router, direct database access, nav injection, and a lifecycle event bus. No build step, no framework. Just a file.

Bundled plugins

AI Integration
Personalised recommendations via Google Gemini
More in development!
Additional plugins on the way
Plugin authoring guide →
plugins/my-plugin/plugin.ts 
export default {
  name: 'my-plugin',

  register({ db, router, addNavItem, on }) {
    // Your own DB tables
    db.prepare(`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS
      myplugin_notes (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
      book_id INTEGER, body TEXT)`).run();

    // Routes at /plugins/my-plugin/…
    router.get('/', (c) =>
      c.json({ ok: true })
    );

    // Sidebar link
    addNavItem({
      label: 'My Plugin',
      href:  '/plugins/my-plugin',
    });

    // React to core events
    on('bookDeleted', ({ id }) => {
      db.prepare('DELETE FROM myplugin_notes
        WHERE book_id = ?').run(id);
    });
  },
};

In action

See what you're getting

Library view

Quickstart

Up and running in minutes

Pick your install method. BookNook runs entirely on your own machine — your data never leaves.

01

Create compose.yml

Paste this into a new file in an empty directory.

compose.yml 
services:
  booknook:
    image: zadenm/booknook:main
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"
    env_file: .env
    environment:
      NODE_ENV: production
      DATA_DIR: /app/data
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
      - ./books:/app/books
      - ./comics:/app/comics
      - ./cache:/app/cache
    restart: unless-stopped
02

Create .env

Set your admin credentials and a random session secret. Generate one with openssl rand -hex 32.

.env 
ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
ADMIN_PASSWORD=changeme
SESSION_SECRET=paste-your-random-string-here
03

Start BookNook

Run this from the same directory as your compose.yml.

shell 
$ docker compose up -d
04

Open your browser

BookNook is ready. Log in with the credentials you set in .env.

localhost:3001