What is Komga used for?

Komga is listed as a Media tool on TiloBox. Review the overview, features, and official documentation on this page to decide whether it solves your specific workflow.

How do I get started with Komga?

Start with the project's GitHub repository and official website for supported installation and deployment instructions. Test the setup with representative data or a small project before rolling it out more widely.

What license does Komga use?

Komga is listed under the MIT license. Read the complete license text and the project's notices before using, modifying, or distributing the software.

Is Komga ready for production use?

Production readiness depends on your requirements. Review maintenance activity, security practices, documentation, backup and upgrade procedures, and compatibility with your stack; then validate it in a non-production environment.

Is Komga an alternative to Comixology?

Komga is listed as an alternative to Comixology. Compare the core workflow, deployment model, integrations, and licensing against your must-have requirements before switching.

Media Alternative to Comixology

Komga

Free and open-source media server for comics, manga, BDs, and magazines.

View on GitHub Visit website

LicenseMIT

GitHub stars6.6k

Last commit2 weeks ago

Tags7 topics

TachiyomiComicsMedia ServerOpdsSelf HostedMangaJava

Overview

Why consider Komga?

Komga is a dedicated media server for comic books and manga with full metadata parsing. It features a modern web reader, REST API, OPDS integration, and Tachiyomi support.

Guided learning

Learn Komga by building

Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.

3 min read 10 sections

In this guide10 sections

What is Komga?

Komga is an open-source media server designed specifically for organizing and reading digital comic books, manga, Franco-Belgian Bande Dessinée (BD), and magazines. Developed in Kotlin and Spring Boot, Komga operates as a self-hosted alternative to commercial comic readers like ComiXology.

Komga scans local directories of archive files (CBZ, CBR, PDF, EPUB), extracts internal page thumbnails and ComicInfo.xml metadata, and provides a polished web interface with continuous reading modes alongside full OPDS feed compatibility for external reading clients.

Who Is It For?

Comic Book Collectors: Organizing multi-volume graphic novel runs, one-shots, and story arcs with issue metadata and cover galleries.
Manga Fans: Streaming high-resolution Japanese manga scans directly to mobile devices without manual file extraction.
Multi-User Families: Sharing comic collections with individual read status tracking and user-specific library access permissions.

Key Features

Modern responsive web reader with left-to-right, right-to-left (Manga), and continuous vertical (Webtoon) display modes.
Native OPDS 1.2 and OPDS-PS feed support for client apps like Mihon, Tachiyomi, Paperback, and Chunky.
Automated metadata parsing from embedded ComicInfo.xml documents and integration with ComicRack conventions.
Deep duplicate detection and media analysis for identifying corrupted archives or missing pages.
Robust REST API enabling third-party automation tools and metadata enrichment scripts.

Deploying Komga with Docker Compose

yaml

1version: '3.3'

3services:

4 komga:

5 image: gotson/komga:latest

6 container_name: komga

7 restart: unless-stopped

8 environment:

9 - TZ=UTC

10 volumes:

11 - ./config:/config

12 - /media/comics:/data

13 ports:

14 - 25600:25600

15 user: "1000:1000"

Start the instance:

bash

1docker compose up -d

Navigate to http://localhost:25600 in your browser to create the initial admin user and configure your first comic book library path.

Practical Use Cases

1. Tachiyomi / Mihon Cloud Backend

An Android user installs the official Komga extension in Mihon, connects their self-hosted server via API key, and streams entire comic libraries seamlessly over Wi-Fi.

2. Story Arc and Series Curation

A collector organizes cross-series comic crossover events into structured Reading Lists that guide the reader sequentially through multi-title storylines.

3. Automated Library Metadata Scanning

An administrator configures automated folder watching; when new comic files are downloaded, Komga automatically indexes covers, page counts, and issue metadata.

Troubleshooting and Limitations

Java Memory Allocation: For libraries containing hundreds of thousands of comic issues, increase JVM heap memory allocation by setting JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-Xmx2g.
CBR / RAR Support: Ensure your host system or Docker image supports non-free unrar binaries if your library contains legacy CBR files.

Official Resources

Official Website: https://komga.org
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/gotson/komga
Documentation: https://komga.org/docs/

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