I want to get away from audible to save money and for privacy. I would like to keep buying audiobooks if possible and host them on my server to stream to my android phone.
I have an unraid plex server at home. Suggestions for hosting and streaming solutions?
Update: I ended up going with audiobookshelf. I love it so far and it does everything I need. More importantly (for me anyway) it’s not reliant on a $17/mo audible subscription. Please reach out over DM if you find this post in the future and have trouble getting audiobookshelf to work on unraid!
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.
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Like everybody else here said…audiobookshelf is da bomb. I had an audible subscription for a while and found myself without the time to really listen to enough audiobooks to make it worthwhile so I cancelled. I know I could still access the audiobooks I purchased but I’m always concerned with these companies suddenly having a disagreement with a publisher and nuking a whole pile of media I paid for so I figured out how to download my purchased audiobooks locally to be listened to via audiobookshelf. Worked great.
Tagging along on this question, is there a reasonably simple way to rip audible books to a non-proprietary/drm format?
In @nerdias comment in this thread about setting up plex for audiobooks, there is also a section with a link about de-drm’ing your audible books.
I havent troed it out myself, just stumbled upon it while checking out the thread, but I thought I’d point it out.
Everyone loves audiobookshelf, but since you mentioned Plex, I thought I’d let you know that you can use Plex to host your audiobooks too.
Here’s a guide:
https://github.com/seanap/Plex-Audiobook-Guide
I use Prologue for IOS to listen to them.
I have a plex setup too, using Prologue.
I never listen to audiobooks using Plex, and prologue manages listening state just fine for me.
I use an iphone, and this is my set up too. Does android have a prologue app?
Audiobookshelf got an android app too.
It’s really good too.
And iOS app too! It’s awesome.
Audiobookshelf works great and is very easy to setup using Docker. I get most of my audiobooks through Downpour. They have a subscription that gives credits to redeem for audiobooks similar to Audible, but they are drm-free. I download the audiobooks and move them to my NAS that has Audiobookshelf running on it. Audiobookshelf has a web client and apps for Android and iOS (TestFlight beta).
Not what you’re asking for and others have provided a lot of options… but if you still want to support authors and get DRM-free audio books, check out https://libro.fm. It works like Audibe credits and easy to pause and resume membership (more cost effective than buying books retail and you can buy extra credits). They also support a local brick and mortar book store of your choice with your purchase.
I’m just looking at this now, supporting a local bookstore is pretty cool