u/koustavdg

Firstly, I want to thank this community (and r/KavitaManga ) for their support over the last couple of months as I've built this app, and for those who purchased the lifetime pro license. Thank you!! 🙏

This 2.1 release is really a culmination of your user feedback and requests, starting with -

• CBZ panel previews - Many of you wanted to check out the panel feature on CBZs before deciding whether to get pro, so now you can read the first 7 pages of ALL your CBZ files in the free tier

• Scrolling fixes - Scroll now successfully navigates chapter changes, something it did sporadically before. You can no longer accidentally swipe left or right during scroll, and you can resume reading from the page you tapped to stop scrolling

• Manga support - available on a per-book basis. Hit the Aa button when reading a comic to switch between Regular and Manga modes. Manga reads right to left, top to bottom, tap left to advance. Note that manga panel detection is still a work in progress, and is an area I plan to improve on in future releases.

* iPad fixes - Margin functionality has been added so that the app doesn't leave large margin gaps, especially in landscape mode. Which leads me to - two-pane reading for iPads is finally available!

• Confirmed HTTP/HTTPS connectivity rules. Sutra follows Apple's networking rules: unencrypted (HTTP) connections only work for local addresses (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, .local) or a Tailscale .ts.net hostname. A raw Tailscale IP (100.x.x.x) doesn't qualify - use its .ts.net name instead, or enable HTTPS on your server. Anything else needs real HTTPS to connect; this is an iOS restriction, not Sutra's. Having said that, I have now included a URL checker when entering your library URL during connect which should give you more immediate feedback

• Note - I didn't include KOReader sync integration in this release. I built it, but there are too many testing pathways that still need fixing before it's ready to ship. I'll come back to it in a future release

New features

• Stats page - A much-requested feature - you can now track your reading hours, session counts, and how many hours you've read per book

• WebDAV support - keeping with the theme of letting users read without hosting a server, you can now enable WebDAV on a Windows/Mac/Linux folder and add it to Sutra to read from

And tons of other bug fixes. We've also improved panel accuracy from 90% to 92% on our test cohort, thanks to a new hybrid panel detection strategy. Which brings me to the most requested feature here - Android!

Up Next

I've started work on the Android port for Sutra - wish me luck! I'll do a future post asking for testing volunteers shortly. If you'd like to follow along, you can subscribe to the newsletter for updates. Thanks again for all the feedback and support!

App Store: [Sutra]

Website and Newsletter: [Link]

Sutra 2.0 is finally here! It has been a labor of love, and I’m excited to get it in front of you all.

What’s new, all free:
• Panel-aware comic reading — isolates individual panels on your comics instead of shrinking the whole page to fit a phone screen
• Epub auto-scroll — the Marvin feature people have been asking for since it went defunct
• Side-loading — read local files with no server needed at all

The panel-aware comic reading is the one I’m most proud of — I built a dedicated test suite of comics to stress-test panel detection and held the release until it was hitting 90% accuracy against that set before shipping it.

This release also introduces Sutra Pro: a one-time $6.99USD unlock (no subscription) for .cbz/.mobi support and Komga integration. It’s funding a native mobi parser build specifically — everything that was free in 1.x stays free permanently.

Would love to hear if the comic reading holds up on your libraries — that’s the feature I’m most curious about in the wild.

App Store: [Sutra]
Feature requests / bugs: [Link]

Hey everyone, good news for those who asked: Apple finally approved the updated forms, and Sutra (my iOS reader for Calibre, Kavita and other OPDS feeds) is officially back in the European App Store!

Sneak Peek: CBZ & Smart Panel Support
I’m currently deep in the weeds building panel-by-panel comic support. As you can see in the attached comparison image, tapping the bottom-right icon isolates individual panels to fit your screen natively, making reading on smaller devices dramatically better.

Comics have wildly different panel definitions and chromas, so getting this consistent across my test bench is taking up all my free time outside of my day job and family. Because this is the core feature of the next update, I want it to be close to perfect before shipping - so the release may slip to next week.

Thanks to everyone using the app, and do let me know if you have any feedback on the preview!

Download Sutra here

Apologies if self promotion is not allowed here, but I hope this will be helpful for some folks here. Like many of you, I keep my digital library on Unraid. Having Kavita and Calibre spun up in Docker containers is fantastic for organizing everything, but I was constantly frustrated by the client-side experience on iOS.

Whenever I wanted to read my books on my iPhone or iPad, the existing OPDS readers were either abandoned, super clunky, or locked basic features (like downloading books for offline reading), or more typically behind subscriptions.

I wanted a clean, native app that could talk directly to my server, so I spent some time building one. It’s called Sutra, and I wanted to share it with the self-hosting community.

What it does:

• Direct Connection: Point it at your Unraid server's IP/Reverse Proxy URL for Kavita, Calibre, or Calibre-Web, and it pulls in your library instantly.
• Fully Native Reader: Handles EPUB and PDF natively with custom themes, fonts, color highlights, and dictionary lookups.
• Built for Travel: Features a built-in storage manager so you can easily download heavy files locally to your device before a flight or commute.
• Works on Tailscale: Can use https links served by Tailscale serve and funnel functionality.
• Syncs Progress: Uses iCloud to sync your reading progress across your Apple devices (and supports page-accurate sync directly with Kavita's API).
• Public Domain Access: I also baked in Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks directly, in case you want to grab some classics without touching your server.

Cost: It is 100% Free. There are no accounts, no subscriptions, no ads, and no in-app purchases.

App Store Link: [Sutra]

If you're running a book server on your array, I’d love for you to give it a try. Let me know if you run into any quirks connecting your specific container setups!

1.3 just shipped. Short one this time — no new catalogs, no UI overhaul — just the features that kept coming up in the comments, plus a solid reliability pass before we go heads-down on 2.0.

What's new:

• Highlights with color — select any passage, pick a color, syncs across devices via iCloud
• Instant dictionary — double-tap any word while reading. No leaving the page
• Collections Shelf — browse by series now, pulled from your library server's metadata
• Calibre / Calibre-Web / Calibre-Web-Automated fixes — a bunch of edge cases squashed; Kavita HTTP connections now supported too
• Better server compatibility — Tailscale setups, Grimmory shelves, improved OPDS detection
• Cover caching and library performance — large libraries should feel noticeably snappier

Still free. Still no IAP, ads, subscription, or account.

2.0 is Komga and CBZ. That's the whole agenda.

App Store: Sutra

This one had more community fingerprints on it than any release so far — thanks for that. If Sutra's been useful, an App Store review goes a long way. Bugs and feature requests go here, and if you want to follow along on what's coming, the roadmap's on the website.

Apologies if self-promotion is not allowed here, but thought this would be useful for some folks on this subreddit. Sutra is a free OPDS reader for Calibre and Kavita libraries with Gutenberg support built-in.

App Store: [link]

• ⁠Connects to Kavita, Calibre/Calibre-Web, or any OPDS server
• ⁠Gutenberg's baked in, so you don't even need a server for public domain stuff
• ⁠EPUB + PDF, with themes/fonts/bookmarks/search
• ⁠Offline downloads, iCloud sync, and page-accurate progress sync with Kavita
• ⁠Standard Ebooks catalog added (Patrons Circle sign-in unlocks the full library)
• ⁠Proper page-curl animation, with a plain-turn option
• ⁠Dark mode done right — Day, Night, or follow System, book pages keep their own theme
• ⁠Left-handed page turns for one-handed reading

Free — no IAP, no subscription, no ads, no account.

Komga support and CBZ comics are next for 2.0.

Update on the free OPDS reader I posted here a while back. 1.2 just shipped, and it's available in Europe now!

• Standard Ebooks catalog added (Patrons Circle sign-in unlocks the full library)
• Proper page-curl animation, with a plain-turn option
• Dark mode done right — Day, Night, or follow System, book pages keep their own theme
• Left-handed page turns for one-handed reading
• Series info and sorting pulled from your Kavita library
• Fixed large libraries losing books from search
• Fixed cross-device sync on both iCloud and Kavita
• General reliability and security pass

Still free — no IAP, no subscription, no ads, no account.

Komga support and CBZ comics are next for 2.0.

App Store: Link

Genuinely appreciate the pushback and requests last time — left-hand tap to move forward ( u/erichoya), flip/turn animation ( u/viviolay), dark mode ( u/niwia), series info ( u/dsilver87) and Europe availability ( u/sempai-san) all came straight from this subreddit. Keep it coming!

Apologies for the self-promotion. This started as a personal project. I've got Kavita and Calibre running at home, and every iOS OPDS client I tried let me down somehow - either it'd been abandoned years ago, it wanted a subscription to do the basics, or it couldn't even show me my library as a proper grid. I just wanted to see my books in a full grid, and read them as seamlessly as possible.

• Connects to Kavita, Calibre/Calibre-Web, or any OPDS server
• Gutenberg's baked in, so you don't even need a server for public domain stuff
• EPUB + PDF, with themes/fonts/bookmarks/search
• Offline downloads, iCloud sync, and page-accurate progress sync with Kavita
• Free — no IAP, no subscription, no ads, no account

App Store: Link

Standard Ebooks is what I'm working on next, Komga after that. Would genuinely love to hear what this community thinks — bugs, feature requests, whatever. I'll be around in the comments. Thanks!