No apologies needed, I’m not even OP :) it was just a long shot :D

Are you in Europe by any chance? :)

I haven’t tried calibre-web, but has been on my long todo list for a while. If I’m not mistaken, it is not a better UI, it is a better UI for a web server, calibre’s web server is… Well, barebones. So it is meant to replace it when you want to access the library mostly remotely. That’s what I have understood, maybe I’m wrong so take it with a pinch of salt. The other comment had a link to an alternative open source free software library manager, might be worth checking it.

Not the OP you asked, but I back his comment fully. At this point, I don’t even know how long it has been that I have used calibre. I started when I bought a Chinese e-reader back in the day when it was that or the first kindle that had a full keyboard.

At this point, after so long, for me ebooks go hand in hand with calibre. Why choose calibre instead of that alternative? Habits probably, the fact that calibre has filled that role since I ever used a screen to read. I don’t particularly think there’s any other reason. Back in the day when the formats of ebooks were all over the place, the conversion abilities of calibre were priceless. Now everything seems to be epub or cbz for comics. The transfer to the reader was also a breeze with calibre, now with WiFi in every device it doesn’t feel so relevant. Not to mean calibre doesn’t help, it has moved with the times allowing remote direct connection with the readers and so on.

I use Calibre because I already know it, it is open source, and it has proven to work extremely well over all these years. It can be trusted.

But now with all that said, why I wouldn’t use calibre. Calibre comes with its own web server but sincerely it is sooo limited i just can’t stand it. I know there’s calibre-web but I haven’t gotten around to set it up. Plus it doesn’t get along well with calibre itself running if I have understood correctly. It seems where calibre is lacking is in the editing of a library from multiple sources. So its main use seems to be meant on one computer and… That’s it. Now that I am setting some self hosted services, I wanted something similar for calibre. Many times I want to edit the library from my phone when I want to add something I found or whatever. But I appreciate having the full app on my computer to do big complex operations on my libraries. But I’ve never loomed for an alternative, why would I, calibre is incredible… Well, maybe I should. Thanks for that link! It looks promising!

So thoughtful of you, caring for my decision paralysis :D Actually that sounds like a great alternative, might make me choose for something like it and completely delete my paralysis :)

Hmm less drives with more capacity… Wouldn’t that reduce my ability to keep more copies? Unless with less drives you mean 3, instead of 6 and 3 for me us more than I have now xd On the other hand less drives mean less complex NAS, plenty of people have been talking of backup strategies, and I was just simply thinking of having a drive with a clone for important data and another drive for less important (media) data. Then maybe have the most important stuff in a cloud service as an extra safety.

Anyway, many thanks for adding to my paralisys giving a new extra option, it looks promising.