# Foliate

Read e-books in style

Repository: https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/foliate
Homepage: https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
Language: JavaScript
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: ebook-reader, epub, gtk, gjs, fb2, mobi, azw, azw3, cbz, opds
Last push: 2026-04-08T15:11:30+00:00
Link (homepage): https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 64/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 76, release rhythm 28, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2656, "days_push": 147, "days_rel": 519, "gap_med": 61.5, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 8667, forks 413 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:24.116212+00:00)

## What it is
Foliate is a free, open-source e-book reader application for Linux built with GTK4 and GJS, supporting EPUB, Mobipocket, Kindle, FB2, CBZ, and PDF formats. It offers paginated or scrolled reading, annotations, bookmarks, dictionary lookups, translation, and text-to-speech, with a companion foliate-js library for rendering e-books in the browser.

## Use cases
- read epub books on linux
- read kindle mobi files on desktop
- annotate and bookmark ebooks
- look up words in wiktionary while reading
- listen to ebooks with text-to-speech
- browse and download books from opds catalogs
- render ebooks in a web browser with foliate-js

## When to choose
- you use Linux (especially GNOME) and want a polished e-book reader
- you need support for many formats including EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2, and CBZ
- you want annotations and progress stored in portable plain JSON files
- you need features like auto-hyphenation, vertical writing, and media overlays

## When to avoid
- you need an e-book reader for Windows or macOS (Foliate targets Linux/GTK)
- you want to manage a large e-book library with metadata editing and conversion (use Calibre)
- you need DRM-protected commercial e-book support

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: gui, pdf-viewer, speech-recognition, internationalization
- domain: desktop-applications, developer-tools, education, cross-platform
- platform: -
- tags: ebook-reader, epub, mobi, kindle, opds, annotations, text-to-speech, gjs, gnome, linux, desktop, gtk

## Member repositories
- johnfactotum/foliate (main) score 64
- johnfactotum/foliate-js (sdk) score 68

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:24.116212+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:25:37.546182+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/johnfactotum/foliate (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:24.116212+00:00, sha 4f3b0e5afa1e)
  - homepage: https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:26:40.431443+00:00, sha 394cb2500bca)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/foliate-js (fetched 2026-08-29T08:26:40.441048+00:00, sha 67849ee4c6ab)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.