Audiobookshelf
FreeYour own audiobook server, with progress that follows you between devices
A self-hosted audiobook and podcast server. It scans local audio files into a library, fetches covers and metadata, keeps per-user progress for multiple accounts, and has official Android and iOS apps with offline downloads, a sleep timer and speed control. It can also subscribe to podcast RSS feeds directly.
Why we picked it
GPL-3.0, 14,400 stars.
Audiobooks are a tightly locked category: purchased books usually carry DRM, they do not move to another app, and losing the account loses the library. DRM-free files you bought, recordings you made, public-domain readings — these pile up on a disk, and the real annoyance in a normal player is that it forgets your position. A book is thirty files; stop at one on the phone and the laptop has no idea where that was.
This is what Audiobookshelf handles. The library is organised by book rather than by file, and progress syncs on the server, so chapter 12 at eight minutes on the phone continues exactly there in the browser.
Jellyfin also plays audio, but it organises on music logic and does not care about chapters, positions or narrators.
To be clear about:
- It needs your own server or NAS, deployed with Docker.
- Metadata coverage is weaker for non-English audiobooks; covers and descriptions often need filling in by hand.
- It supplies no content — it manages the files you already have.