I dreamed of writing a native app (and originally tried this in Swift), but ran into issues building the UI. Plus, whatever I built would only work on macOS. I started writing Citadel using Tauri (Svelte on the frontend + Rust on the backend) to have a cross-platform desktop app. Plus, Citadel supports running in a headless / webbrowser mode. You can self-host a Citadel server that manages your library, and connect to it from anywhere with the web.

This is SUPER early software. Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed to post it here — but I wanted folks to know that I'm building a tool to replace Calibre. If you'd like to help build it, I'd love the help! If you just want to follow the journey, please do!