How to self-host a Kavita server

Read your comics, manga and ebooks from any device. Cresdock runs it on a server you own, from a catalogue, with no Docker and no reverse proxy to configure.

What Cresdock does for you with Kavita

• Its configuration is written before the container ever starts — including the web address it lives at, so Kavita generates correct links from the first page load instead of half-working behind a prefix.

• Given its own web address, with its own login seeded in advance. Kavita can't live under a shared path, and apps like this are reached by clients that don't carry a browser session — so it gets a real password rather than being left open.

• Your Downloads and Media folders are already mounted, and they are the SAME folders your other apps see — so files land where the rest of your setup expects them, with no path mapping to work out.

• If your library lives on cloud storage rather than the server's own disk, this app can read it from there.

• Kavita reads the comics, manga and books already sitting in your media folders, so filing something there is the whole of the connection — there's no pairing step.

• It covers much the same ground as Komga, so most people keep one or the other rather than both.

Why run Kavita yourself

Streaming services remove things. A film you paid to watch last year can simply stop being there, and nothing tells you in advance. Running your own means the library is whatever you put in it, and it stays.

What kind of server Kavita needs

A media server is the one category where the hardware matters. Direct play — where the app hands the file straight to your TV or phone — costs almost nothing, and 2 GB of memory is plenty. Converting on the fly for a device that can't play the original is what gets expensive; if you expect that often, a machine with hardware video support pays for itself immediately.

Cresdock itself is undemanding — it runs on a small rented server, an old desktop or a mini PC, on Ubuntu or Debian. Everything it installs shares that machine, so the honest question is not "will this app run" but "how much am I going to put on here in total".

Where to run Kavita

Kavita runs wherever Cresdock runs, and the choice is about the machine, not the app:

• At home, on hardware you already own. A mini PC, an old desktop or a NAS that can run Debian. Cresdock works behind a home router with no port forwarding and no domain, so Kavita is reachable on your own network first and from outside only if you choose.
• On a rented server. A small VPS is enough for most apps and is the usual answer when Kavita should be reachable from anywhere. The setup guide covers the specs and the one-command install.
• Through a provider that runs Cresdock. Hosting companies deploy Cresdock workspaces for their customers, so Kavita can come with a server you rent rather than one you set up — ask your provider, or see how providers offer it.

Installing Kavita

1. Put Cresdock on a server

   One line on any Ubuntu or Debian machine — a rented VPS, a spare PC, a home server. It sets itself up.

2. Pick Kavita from the catalogue

   Click Install. The panel pulls the image, writes the configuration, gets a certificate and starts it.

3. Open it from your dashboard

   Its address and any login details are on its card. Start, stop, update, roll back or remove it from the same place, any time.

What's left for you to do

Cresdock does not pretend to do the parts that are genuinely yours to decide. After it's running:

• Open Kavita and create your account. Do this now: the first visitor becomes the owner.

What this replaces

Doing it by hand means writing something like this, then keeping it working:

services:
  kavita:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/kavita:v0.9.0.2-ls117
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
    volumes:
      - ./kavita/config:/config
      - ./downloads:/downloads
      - ./media:/media

And that is the easy half. Still to do:

• Install a reverse proxy and write a server block for it

• Get a TLS certificate and set up automatic renewal

• Create the folders above with the right ownership, or it will not start

• Point a DNS record at the server, because Kavita cannot run under a shared path

• Repeat all of it for the next app, and again on every server rebuild

On Cresdock, Kavita is one click and none of the above exists.

Looking for what Kavita itself can do? That lives in its own documentation — this page is only about running it.

Pairs well with: Komga  ·  Navidrome

Before you start: where to rent a server  ·  what it needs to run  ·  Cresdock vs CasaOS