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Overview
BookWyrm is a social reading platform for tracking books, publishing reviews, quotes, and comments, and discovering what to read next. ActivityPub federation connects independent BookWyrm instances with each other and with compatible services such as Mastodon.
Features and best fit
Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:
Key features
Treat reading activity and reviews as social content
Users can maintain reading shelves, post reviews and quotes, comment on activity, and discover books through people they follow.
Sources: [2]
Federate independent instances through ActivityPub
Small communities can operate their own instances while following and interacting with users on other BookWyrm or ActivityPub services.
Sources: [2]
Best fit
Fits reading communities that want their own moderation and hosting
It supports interest-based or group-based instances rather than requiring every user to join one centralized service.
Sources: [2]
Before adoption
Federation adds moderation and instance-operations work
Administrators choose federation relationships and are responsible for moderation, upgrades, backups, and ongoing service operations.
Sources: [2]
The license includes eligibility conditions
LICENSE.md uses the Anti-Capitalist Software License 1.4 and defines which individuals and organizations may use the software. Verify eligibility before adoption.
Sources: [3]
Official sources
- [1]bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm repository(2026-09-30)
- [2]BookWyrm README(2026-09-30)
- [3]BookWyrm Anti-Capitalist Software License 1.4(2026-09-30)
- [4]BookWyrm v0.9.3 release(2026-09-30)
Supplemental curator note
BookWyrm provides a Goodreads-like reading experience through small federated communities. GitHub reports NOASSERTION for the license; LICENSE.md contains the Anti-Capitalist Software License 1.4 with explicit eligibility conditions for users and organizations, so it should not be treated like a standard permissive or OSI-style license.
Try it in 3 steps
- 1
Get BookWyrm v0.9.3 and create env files
Pin the release and create the development environment files.
git clone --depth 1 --branch v0.9.3 https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm.git && cd bookwyrm && cp .env.example .env && cp .env.dev.example .env.dev - 2
Build and start the development stack
Build the Docker Compose development stack and start PostgreSQL, Redis, web, and related services.
./bw-dev dev build && ./bw-dev dev up -d - 3
Initialize the database
Create the initial database and continue with local instance setup.
./bw-dev dev initdb
Growth
Growth trends · Last 30 days
2,790 Stars
Trend data is still being collected.
Built with
Categories and tags
GitHub data
GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
GitHub Topics
- activitypub
- books
- bookwyrm
- decentralization
- federation
- openlibrary
- reading
- social-media
- Stars
- 2,790
- Forks
- 339
- Watchers
- 31
- Open issues
- 433
- Owner type
- Organization
- Primary language
- Python
- License
- Not determined
- Repository last updated
- Sep 30, 2026
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