The no-Docker way to run Abookify on Linux. Download, open, and it runs the reader and server on your own machine — no terminal, no account, nothing leaves your hardware.
What this is
Abookify Desktop is a small native shell that starts the Abookify server + reader in the background and opens straight to your library. Close it to the tray and playback keeps going; quit from the tray to stop it. It's the same open-source server underneath — the app just manages its lifecycle.
Reading and importing books work the moment it opens. When you want spoken narration (TTS) or transcripts (STT), the app offers to set up an on-device speech engine on first run (with optional GPU acceleration via your host driver) — or you can point it at your own cloud API key instead. No speech engine is required to read.
Downloads (Linux x86-64)
| File | Size | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
abookify_0.1.0_amd64.AppImage |
84 MB | 257c7600a4e518ca24aea36c5a452f10442f60d2309fa26b268393d81820d3b2 |
abookify_0.1.0_amd64.deb |
10 MB | b3e6befd314e5e93b01023da7b94d043e078ad7bfb93510317ee5be86e465c3d |
Install
AppImage (any distro): mark it executable and run it.
chmod +x abookify_0.1.0_amd64.AppImage
./abookify_0.1.0_amd64.AppImage
.deb (Debian / Ubuntu):
sudo dpkg -i abookify_0.1.0_amd64.deb
Then launch Abookify from your applications menu.
Platform coverage
- Linux — available now (this release).
- macOS (.dmg) and Windows (.msi) — coming. The builds are wired but gated on code-signing certificates (Apple Developer ID / Authenticode); they'll ship once signing is in place. This release does not include a macOS or Windows download.
Notes
- The on-device speech engine is fetched on first run — it is not bundled in this download, which is what keeps it small. GPU acceleration uses your host NVIDIA driver directly (no container toolkit needed).
- Open source: the server is AGPL-3.0 (abookify-server); the
.abookfile-format spec is CC BY-SA 4.0. - Privacy: your library stays on your hardware. See https://abookify.com/privacy.