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bookwyrm-social

bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm

A self-hostable social reading network for tracking books, writing reviews, and following friends, federated over ActivityPub with Mastodon.

Open-source alternative to:Goodreads

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Last commit
2 days ago

What is it?

BookWyrm is a social network for reading. Users can track books they have read or want to read, compose reviews, comment on what they are reading, and post quotes from books. Conversations can span the wider network, so users on different servers can follow each other and reply to posts.

The project is built on ActivityPub, so independent BookWyrm instances can federate with each other and with services such as Mastodon and Pleroma. A book club, an interest group, or a circle of friends can run its own instance and choose which other instances to connect with and how to moderate them. Users and administrators can also control who sees their posts and which instances they federate with.

The stack is Python with Django, PostgreSQL, Celery and Redis for background tasks, Bulma for styling, and Docker-based deployment with Gunicorn and Nginx. Setup guides for developer and production environments are available in the project documentation.

Key features

  • 01Write reviews, comments and quote posts about books
  • 02Track books you have read and want to read
  • 03Federate with other BookWyrm instances and ActivityPub services like Mastodon
  • 04Control post visibility and which instances to federate with
  • 05Share book and author metadata across federated instances

Use cases

  • Running a private instance for a book club or group of friends
  • Building a small, topic-focused reading community
  • Connecting a reading community with Mastodon users across the fediverse

Quick start

  1. 1

    Read the developer environment install guide on the documentation site

  2. 2

    Read the production install guide on the documentation site

Things to know

  • The license is listed as NOASSERTION, so the terms are unclear and should be checked before reuse.
  • Setup requires a self-hosted stack of Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery and Docker, which takes real effort.
  • The README asks contributors not to submit AI-generated code or content.

Topics

#activitypub#federation#social-media#books#django#python#self-hosted#bookwyrm#decentralization#openlibrary

FAQ

What is bookwyrm?
A self-hostable social reading network for tracking books, writing reviews, and following friends, federated over ActivityPub with Mastodon. BookWyrm is a social network for reading. Users can track books they have read or want to read, compose reviews, comment on what they are reading, and post quotes from books. Conversations can span the wider network, so users on different servers can follow each other and reply to posts.
Is bookwyrm free to use? What license does it have?
bookwyrm is open source under the Other license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is bookwyrm still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to bookwyrm was on Oct 18, 2026.
What can I use bookwyrm for?
Running a private instance for a book club or group of friends Building a small, topic-focused reading community Connecting a reading community with Mastodon users across the fediverse
How do I install bookwyrm?
Read the developer environment install guide on the documentation site Read the production install guide on the documentation site
Where can I get bookwyrm?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm

Summary generated by AI from the project's README. GitHub stats refresh daily.

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