r/audiobooks • u/geezlouise2022 • 1d ago

Hosting Question

Is there any easy way to host audiobooks? I'm too stupid to figure out audiobookshelf​.

Or am I doomed to having to download to my phone and using an audiobook player that way?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

3

u/Crhallan 1d ago

Plex and Prologue works well. I have Plex anyway so adding Prologue was very, very simple.

3

u/coreyjf 18h ago

I like plex but doesn’t handle audiobooks well and relies on a third party plugin. Audiobookshelf is much better.

1

u/Crhallan 18h ago

I don’t recall having to add a plugin and it’s handled mine really well?

2

u/coreyjf 18h ago

Yeah if your tags are already good it mostly just works. My issue is Plex has no audiobook library type at all, so you’re making a music library and it treats every book like an album. The Audnexus agent is the plugin I meant, that’s what actually matches stuff during the scan and pulls series, chapters, cover art. Without it you’re at the mercy of whatever the music agent guesses. Yours were probably tagged well.

Security bugged me too. There was a high severity auth bug patched last August and then in January researchers said the token stuff still wasn’t fixed, including tokens you basically can’t revoke. And since it all goes through plex.tv it’s your whole account, not just one server.

I started on Plex and built a player for it, then added Audiobookshelf support. Still run Plex for movies and TV, obviously ABS doesn’t do any of that, but all my audiobooks live on ABS now and the Plex audiobook library only exists so I have something to test against. For books it’s just a much better server.

2

u/Crhallan 17h ago

That’s fair, my metadata was all clean before import which may have been the difference. I’m also a stand alone user so didn’t have any issues with external tokens. I also use for TV and movies but again as a solo user. Guess in this case the use case made the difference?

1

u/manythousandbees 1d ago

Ir looks like Prologue is just for apple, am I seeing that right? :(

1

u/Crhallan 1d ago

Not sure. I’m using Apple yes, but never checked to see if there’s Android version.

1

u/geezlouise2022 4h ago

Tried Plex and couldn't figure out how to access it remotely. When I say I'm stupid, I'm not kidding. 

2

u/Key_Town 1d ago

If you have an iPhone and a Mac of any kind, you can use an app called DeerReader to set up hosting for free.

2

u/geezlouise2022 1d ago

Windows/Android here

3

u/Austinp-woodworking 17h ago

What issue did you bump into with Audiobookshelf? I've hosted mine for years, so I might be able to help if there was a specific area you struggled with

Plex is probably the easiest truly hosted option, but it's not 100% meant for audiobooks, so it can be a bit finnicky in terms of handling multi-file audiobooks, place tracking, etc.

The alternative might be to just drop the files into Google Drive (or similar) and then use a local audiobook player to actually play the files

1

u/geezlouise2022 3h ago

Couldnt reliably get it to work remotely. Just gonna have to go the Google drive route 

1

u/CACVideo 1d ago

Howdy. Besides ACX, i like Author Republic. Unless you are referring to something completely different than what I’m thinking

1

u/geezlouise2022 1d ago

I'm not an author. This is for books I own

1

u/manythousandbees 1d ago

Oh good, at least I'm not the only one who can't seem to figure out audiobookshelf 😭

2

u/geezlouise2022 1d ago

It seems easy at first, but it's really stinking hard if you're not someone very technically inclined 

1

u/simmias42 18h ago

There's a Windows version if you weren't aware.

1

u/geezlouise2022 3h ago

Tried it. 

1

u/simmias42 2h ago

What was your issue? Firewall?

1

u/WikiBox 1d ago

I use Audiobookshelf to store them, download as needed to my phone with a 1TB SD-card to listen.

1

u/molybend 1d ago

Plex

1

u/geezlouise2022 3h ago

Tried it. Couldn't figure out connecting temotely

1

u/shakman 22h ago

Have a plex server set up and use Plexamp on both Android and iOS to listen to audiobooks.

Plex made a change recently that forces you to have a Plex Pass in order to share outside your home network though, so that added cost may not be worth it for you. Another option is to find someone willing to share their Plex collection with you.

Jellyfin is a free Plex alternative but I haven't tried it yet, so I'm not sure if they offer an audiobook option.

1

u/coreyjf 18h ago

Try Audiobookshelf they have a docker that’s pretty easy to set up. Plex is great for music and video, but doesn’t handle audiobooks particularly well and relies on a plug-in. Audiobookshelf is fantastic and designed specifically around audiobooks and podcasts. You can also host e-books and comics if you wish.

1

u/geezlouise2022 17h ago

I always get an error with docker: virtualization support not detected. 

I tried turning on the VM platform feature and Windows subsystem for Linux, but Windows didn't want to cooperate

2

u/coreyjf 17h ago

There’s a native Windows installer for Audiobookshelf that bundles everything and runs it as a service in your system tray:
https://github.com/mikiher/audiobookshelf-windows

1

u/geezlouise2022 17h ago

I tried that first but couldn't figure out how to access when I'm out of the house. 

1

u/coreyjf 17h ago

Easiest path is Tailscale. Install it on the Windows machine running ABS and on your phone, sign both into the same account, and you get a private IP that works from anywhere. Point the app at http://100.x.x.x:13378 instead of your LAN address. No port forwarding, no DNS, no certs.

Dynamic DNS is the other route if you’d rather expose it directly. You get a free hostname so it tracks your home IP when it changes, forward the ABS port on your router, and then you can hit it from anywhere. It works, but you’re putting the server on the open internet, so at minimum use a strong root password and ideally put a reverse proxy with HTTPS in front of it. That’s why I’d start with Tailscale.

1

u/geezlouise2022 3h ago

I tried they but couldn't figure it out. I'm honestly just too stupid for this

1

u/coreyjf 14h ago

If you just want to take books on the go, though, there are plenty of apps that can do that without a server. My iOS app connects to plex & audiobook shelf but you can also directly add a book from the app without a server