First of all, shoutout to you guys on Linuxserver for maintaining such a high-quality list of Docker images.
Books always have a special place in my heart. And following my self-hosting excitement, naturally i'm interested in managing my (e-)books. Folks over on Linuxserver Awesome List have recommendation to manage your e-book collection, that is, Calibre and Calibre-web.
When comparing the two, i see that Calibre-web has a much modern interface, compared to Calibre website which honestly looks like a antique website. Naturally i choose Calibre-web.
Install went okay, since the fact that to start the container it took almost full two minutes that made me frantically looking at my compose file looking for mistakes. It works at the end, so no worries. After logging in, it prompts path to Calibre database. Looking at documentation, it recommends /book path as the location of the database.
But it founds nothing. Turns out you need to generate one on the Calibre container. Which is weird, since Calibre-web is just a pretty looking Calibre right?
Well, not really. Calibre-web is actually just a nicer front-end that you can expose to web browser, while Calibre is a desktop app to manage your e-book collection. Yes, a desktop app, not a web app.
Compounding the fact, Readarr, an automatic e-book downloader, specified the needs for Calibre Content Server, which is only availabe in Calibre, the desktop app.
Linuxserver.io does provide images for both Calibre and Calibre-web, which i haven't tried. Maybe i should in near future.
Closing
In short, Calibre-web is just a nice frontend for Calibre. Calibre is a e-book management app for desktop use.