Audiobookshelf

Audiobookshelf is a self-hosted server for audiobooks and podcasts with first-party iOS and Android apps. Add your audiobook files, subscribe to podcast feeds, and stream everything to your phone with chapter navigation, variable playback speed, sleep timer, and per-user listening position tracking. It is one of the few tools in the self-hosted space that combines a solid server with mobile apps built specifically for it rather than adapted from a general media player.

The podcast management side handles subscription, automatic episode downloads on a configurable schedule, and feed updates. You can subscribe to any public podcast feed or import a private feed URL, and Audiobookshelf fetches and stores episodes locally. For people who want a podcast archive that does not depend on a third-party app’s server or a subscription service, this is the practical path.

Per-user progress is worth highlighting for household use. Each account maintains its own playback position independently, so a household with several people sharing one library does not have one user’s listening history overwrite another’s. Libraries can be split by type (audiobooks versus podcasts) with separate user access controls.

The main prerequisite is that your files are already DRM-free. Audiobookshelf plays MP3, M4B, FLAC, and most common audio formats. Audible purchases in AAX format require a separate conversion step before they work with any self-hosted tool — this is not an Audiobookshelf limitation, it is an Audible DRM restriction.

Metadata fetching works well for popular titles but can mis-match on older or obscure audiobooks. Manual metadata editing covers the gaps, but cleaning a large library with inconsistent tags takes time.

Audiobookshelf: Pros & Cons