Foliate is a desktop e-book reader application built with GTK and JavaScript that supports multiple e-book formats including EPUB, MOBI, AZW, AZW3, FB2, and CBZ files.
The tool addresses the need for a capable e-book reader on Linux desktop systems. It renders books using WebkitGTK and provides features such as customizable typography, dark mode, annotations, footnote popups, and support for vertical writing systems. The application integrates with system services for optional functionality: hyphenation rules improve text layout, speech-dispatcher enables text-to-speech, and tracker can index book file locations.
Foliate suits users seeking a native GTK application for reading e-books on Linux. The project is distributed through multiple channels including Flatpak and Snap for convenient installation, or can be built from source using Meson. For developers, the tool can run directly from the source tree without installation, though settings persistence requires compiling the GSettings schema. The codebase uses git submodules and bundles several JavaScript libraries including foliate-js for format handling, zip.js for archive extraction, and PDF.js for PDF support.
Development activity shows consistent maintenance with regular updates to the codebase. The project accepts contributions and provides clear documentation for building and running from source. The maintainer actively responds to issues and has established multiple distribution channels to reach users across different Linux environments.
