Kiwix Serve

Websites such as Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, and Stack Overflow pack into single ZIM files, and Kiwix Serve publishes a folder of them as a searchable library that opens in any browser, with no connection to the originals. Point it at individual files, a directory, or a library file, and visitors get a welcome page where they filter books by language, category, or words in the title and description. Each book opens in a built-in viewer without downloading the archive, with toolbar buttons for the library, a random article, and in-book search. Title suggestions appear as you type, and full-text search returns highlighted snippets from indexed books, across several at once when they share a language. OPDS catalogs let reader apps browse and fetch the collection, and the library reloads automatically when its file changes. Admins can swap in a custom welcome page, publish under a URL prefix, hide the library button or search box, block links that leave the archive, and cap connections per visitor. Interface translations cover dozens of languages. Universities, community networks, and home labs get a reference shelf that stays available when the original sites are slow, blocked, or gone, with developer documentation and Q&A always within reach. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. GPL-3.0 licensed.

Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve
Kiwix Serve

Benefits

  • Keep reference material always available
  • Wikipedia, developer docs, and Q&A archives are served from your own storage, so they keep loading when the original sites are unreachable, slow, or blocked.
  • Read huge archives without downloading them
  • The viewer pulls pages straight out of a ZIM file, so visitors can browse even the full English Wikipedia, over 100 GiB in the official catalog, without copying anything to their device.
  • Find answers fast with built-in search
  • Title suggestions appear as you type, and full-text search highlights matching passages across one book or several, so people reach the paragraph they need quickly.
  • Run a compact, tunable server
  • A lightweight daemon with configurable threads, connection limits, URL prefix, and optional library monitoring runs comfortably on modest hardware, and sits cleanly behind a reverse proxy.

Features

  • ZIM archive library
  • Serves individual ZIM files, whole directories, or an XML or OPDS library file, with a welcome page that filters books by language, category, and keywords.
  • Built-in ZIM viewer
  • Renders pages from inside a ZIM file in the browser with a toolbar for the library, random article, and search, without downloading the archive.
  • Suggestions and full-text search
  • Autocompletes page titles from the ZIM title index and runs full-text search over indexed books, including multi-book searches limited to a single language.
  • OPDS catalog API
  • Publishes OPDS feeds under /catalog/v2 with filters for language, category, tags, size, and name, so reader apps can browse and download ZIM files.
  • Access and display controls
  • Command-line flags set a custom welcome page, URL root, thread count, per-IP connection limits, and options to hide toolbar buttons or block external links.
  • Docker and native packages
  • An official ghcr.io/kiwix/kiwix-serve Docker image serves a mounted ZIM folder, while static binaries and distribution packages cover Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows.

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