GitHub - heisehis/PaperBunkr: Free, local-first desktop comic & manga library and reader for Windows — a ground-up ComicRack rewrite. Reads CBZ/CBR/PDF/EPUB/FB2/MOBI, with Smart Lists, rich metadata editing, and plugins. No cloud, no account.

A local-first desktop comic & manga library and reader — a ground-up rewrite of ComicRack.

Paperbunkr is a free, local-first desktop library and reader for comics and manga — a from-scratch rewrite of ComicRack built on .NET and Avalonia UI, currently packaged for Windows. It reads CBZ, CBR, and PDF comics, and EPUB, PDF, FB2, and MOBI/AZW3 books, with a full library manager, a custom reader, rich metadata editing, and an installable plugin ecosystem.

Your library, reading progress, and settings never leave your machine. There is no cloud dependency, no account, and no client-server model like Komga or Kavita — Paperbunkr is a desktop app that points at folders of files you already own and keeps a local SQLite database alongside them.

The project aims for ComicRack CE feature parity plus deliberate, modern deviations — Tachiyomi/Mihon-inspired manga handling, a relationship-aware recommendation engine, a reading-habit dashboard, and a reworked reader among them. It is a solo project and is currently in beta: expect rough edges, and keep backups of anything you point it at.

Migrating from ComicRack CE? Paperbunkr imports an existing CE library — see Importing from ComicRack CE.

Recent Highlights (September 2026)

The 0.3.0-beta release is the largest since the alpha. The biggest things to be aware of:

Insights & Stats. A new "Insights" section in the nav rail with a reading-habit dashboard and a library/reading analytics view, both backed by an append-only log of your reading activity (existing progress is backfilled on first launch).
Quick Open (Ctrl+P). A command palette to jump to any screen, series, or action by typing — the fastest way around the app.
Activity Center. A status bar with a pop-out panel that shows background jobs (scans, cover work, scheduled tasks) and surfaces alerts in one place.
Library Health & Automation. A Preferences dashboard that finds missing files, flags likely duplicates, and collects everything needing attention into a single "Needs Review" list — plus scheduled background maintenance (rescans, cover verification, backups, and more) you control from Preferences → Automation.
Virtual Tags & Saved Workspaces. Rule-based tags that apply themselves to matching issues, and named snapshots of a full Library or Books view (filters, sort, grouping, columns) you can restore in one click.
FB2 and MOBI/AZW3 books. Both formats now import and read alongside EPUB and PDF, and the Books/PDF reader was rebuilt around a reflow renderer with a shared reading HUD, in-text highlights and notes, and accessibility support.
More trackers. MangaUpdates, MangaDex, and Kitsu join AniList and MangaBaka, with optional two-way sync that can push your progress and ratings back to a provider.
Drag-and-drop import & metadata write-back. Drop files, folders, or .cbl lists onto the Library or a Reading List to import them; optionally write your metadata edits back into the comic file as ComicInfo.xml and/or a JSON sidecar (off by default).
Python plugin commands. Plugins can now script commands in Python alongside the existing plugin API, which also gained new UI extension points and bulk operations. Duplicate Finder ships as a built-in installable plugin.
A faster, quieter app. Every Library view mode is virtualized (large libraries use far less memory and scroll smoothly), the reader's decode/cache/prefetch pipeline was rebuilt, startup no longer blocks on the library load, and navigation between screens is animated throughout. Preferences was reorganized around a tile-based hub.
Redesigned installer and first-run. Brand artwork, a combined license + terms page, per-format file-association checkboxes, a branded startup splash, a reworked Welcome screen, and a "What's New" panel on first launch of a new version.

Full history is in CHANGELOG.md.

Features

Comic & Manga Reading

A custom reader canvas with real page decoding and rendering for .cbz / .cbr / .pdf — no webview anywhere.

Layouts & fit. Single page, double-page spread, and continuous / webtoon scroll; fit-to-width, fit-to-height, fit-screen, and original-resolution modes; zoom presets and free zoom; page rotation and per-page rotation overrides.
Reading direction. Left-to-right and right-to-left (manga) page turning, with settings remembered per series.
Motion & chrome. Page-turn transitions, auto-scroll, fullscreen with auto-hiding overlays, an on-screen clock and battery indicator, and tap-to-toggle chrome on touch.
Live image adjustment. Brightness, contrast, saturation, and gamma overlays independent of your display settings, plus background colour and margin customization.
Navigation. Split-page part-by-part navigation for oversized pages, named bookmarks, remappable keyboard shortcuts, and a rebuilt decode/cache/prefetch pipeline that keeps fast-flipping smooth and memory bounded (Ctrl+Shift+P shows a performance overlay).

Books (EPUB, PDF, FB2, MOBI)

A separate Books section for novels, sitting alongside the comic library.

Formats. EPUB, PDF, FB2, and MOBI/AZW3.
Reflow reader. A dedicated reflow renderer for EPUB with a shared reading HUD.
Annotations. In-text highlights and notes.
Accessibility. Screen-reader and keyboard support in the Books reader.
Home integration. A "Continue Reading — Books" shelf on the Home dashboard.

Library Management

Browsing. Series and per-issue views, multiple view modes (grid, panorama, details list, and more), all virtualized so large libraries stay responsive.
Panorama. Shows every cover at its true shape — portrait, landscape, or square — without decoding every image up front.
Collections. Group series, issues, and books by hand, or with rule-based Smart Collections, browsable from the Library sidebar.
Sort, group & filter. A unified pool of sort and group keys, filter chips, and a View & Sort panel; Saved Workspaces capture a whole configuration by name.
Virtual Tags. Rule-based tags that apply themselves to matching issues.
Navigation. Full keyboard movement through every grid and sidebar, Back/Forward screen history, and Quick Open (Ctrl+P) to jump anywhere by typing.
Import. Folder scanning with trade-paperback folding and anthology auto-splitting, plus drag-and-drop of files, folders, and .cbl lists onto the Library.

Home Dashboard & Recommendations

A cover-forward dashboard driven by a relationship-aware recommendation engine.

Continue Reading for comics and books, tracking your exact page.
"Because you read…" recommendations that follow series relations, shared creators, continuity, and story events.
Spotlight modules with a blurred cover-wall masthead that picks up the featured book's colour and the active theme.

Smart Lists & Reading Lists

Smart Lists v2. Saved rule-based views with nested AND/OR condition groups and text operators (list-contains, regex, case sensitivity) — a CE-parity rule engine.
Reading Lists. Hand-curated ordered lists, with drag-and-drop reordering and bulk actions.
Import / export. ComicBookList (.cbl) and CSV, with story-arc lookup across multiple sources to auto-build an event's reading order from files you already own.

Metadata & Editing

Editors. Single-issue and bulk multi-issue property editors with a save/cancel edit buffer, autocomplete, dropdowns, and steppers that match ComicRack's editing feel.
Per-page. Page type and rotation overrides, copy/paste of metadata, a token editor, and undo/redo.
Canonical model. Series relations, continuity groupings, story events, media relations, and external links — a full metadata platform underneath the editors.
Online lookups. Link external metadata from AniList, MangaBaka, MangaUpdates, MangaDex, Kitsu, and more as per-field proposals you accept or reject, with optional two-way sync of progress and ratings. Bring your own ComicVine API key for ComicVine lookups.
Write-back. Optionally embed your edits into the file as ComicInfo.xml and/or a paperbunkr.json sidecar (opt-in, .cbz only).

Story Events & Continuity

Bulk selection, continuity editing and merging, and cross-event relations.
Format-signal grouping suggestions.
An age / appearance timeline for tracking a character or continuity across events.

Insights

A reading-habit dashboard in the nav rail.
A Stats view with library and reading analytics (ScottPlot charts).
Both backed by an append-only ReadingEvent log; your existing progress is backfilled once on upgrade.

Library Health & Automation

Library Health. A Preferences dashboard that finds missing files, flags likely duplicates, and collects everything needing attention into a single "Needs Review" list.
Automation. Background maintenance tasks — library rescan, cover verification, database backups, and more — each on a schedule you control from Preferences → Automation, with an activity history.
Activity Center. A status bar and pop-out panel showing running jobs and alerts.

Plugins

An installable plugin ecosystem with its own package manager in Preferences → Plugins.
A plugin API for reading metadata, running rules, and writing changes under user confirmation, with UI extension points (a ComicInfo editor tab, Quick Open entries, thumbnail overlays) and bulk operations.
Python plugin commands alongside the existing API.
Duplicate Finder ships as a built-in installable plugin.

Preferences & Appearance

Preferences organized into General, Appearance, Library (with Library Health, Folder Management, and Virtual Tags), Automation, Reader, Keyboard Shortcuts, Connections, Plugins, Advanced, and About — every area reworked around a tile-based layout.
A runtime skin/theme system with light and dark themes.
Publisher, service, format, age-rating, and language iconography across library, detail, and metadata screens.
Database backups (scheduled and automatic), a corrupted-database recovery flow, and crash-safe WAL mode.
Auto-update — Paperbunkr checks for new releases on startup (and on demand from Preferences → About) and can download and apply updates in-app.

Migrating from ComicRack CE

Paperbunkr imports an existing ComicRack CE library — database, reading state, lists, and embedded metadata — with series-identity matching and CE-compatible metadata precedence. See the migration guide.

Installation & Build

Install a build

Grab the installer from the latest release and run it. It is fully self-contained — it bundles its own .NET runtime, so there is nothing else to install. Windows only for now. Paperbunkr checks for new releases on startup and can update itself in-app.

Build from source

Requires the .NET 10 SDK.

dotnet build Paperbunkr.sln
dotnet run --project src/Paperbunkr.App/Paperbunkr.App.csproj

To build a Windows installer yourself (requires Inno Setup 6):

pwsh installer/BuildInstaller.ps1

More detail — architecture, project layout, and Phase 0 findings — is in docs/onboarding.md.

Known Limitations (beta)

Windows only for now. Cross-platform (macOS / Linux) is a later-phase goal, not a v1 requirement.
No cloud sync — this is by design, not a gap, but worth knowing up front.
No content downloading. Paperbunkr enriches and reads files you already own; a Tachiyomi-style source/extension system for fetching chapters from external sites is deliberately out of scope.
This is a solo beta project. Things move fast, screens and wording change often, and bugs happen — reports are genuinely welcome.

Documentation

The project wiki covers day-to-day use:

Getting Started
The Library · Reading · Keyboard Shortcuts
Smart Lists · Reading Lists · Books (EPUB & PDF)
Metadata & Editing · Preferences · Plugins
Importing from ComicRack CE · Troubleshooting

Contributing & License

This is primarily a solo project, but external contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the (lightweight) contributor license terms and .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE / .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md for how to open issues and PRs. Bug reports and feedback are genuinely welcome via GitHub Issues.

Paperbunkr is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPLv3). See also PRIVACY.md (how the app handles data and third-party API calls), TERMS.md (usage terms and warranty disclaimer), and COMICVINE_NOTICE.md (guidance on using your own ComicVine API key). These are living documentation templates, not a substitute for your own legal review if you redistribute or operate a modified instance.

Acknowledgements

Paperbunkr stands on a lot of prior work:

ComicRack and the ComicRack Community Edition project — the original this is a rewrite of, and the reference for feature parity. See docs/onboarding.md §2 for the provenance and licensing notes.
Avalonia UI — the cross-platform .NET UI framework the whole app is built on.
CommunityToolkit.Mvvm, Entity Framework Core + SQLite, ScottPlot, Svg.Skia, and FluentIcons.
AniList, MangaBaka, MangaUpdates, MangaDex, Kitsu, and ComicVine — the metadata sources behind online lookups and tracking.
Inno Setup — the Windows installer.
Tachiyomi / Mihon — inspiration for the manga library and reading model.

Built with heavy AI assistance from Claude (Anthropic).

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Recent Highlights (September 2026)

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