Audioserve HTML 5 based audio server on docker, great for audiobooks

Serving audiobooks is a special use case when it comes to audio and media servers. I've tried Jellyfin as an audiobook player and the results were disappointing. On the self-hosted Reddit page I saw a mention of Audioserve being a simple directory player with audiobook focus and a docker image to boot.

I had some initial hurdles getting the image to start properly since the instructions regarding the port number used were incoherent. The docker-compose I ended up with was the following :

---
services:
  audioserve:
    image: izderadicka/audioserve
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - AUDIOSERVE_SHARED_SECRET=**YourPasswordGoesHere**
      - VIRTUAL_HOST=yourdomaingoeshere.lan:3000
    command: --search-cache /audiobooks
    volumes: 
      - ./audiobooks:/audiobooks
      - ./.audioserve:/home/audioserve/.audioserve
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    restart: unless-stopped

Keep in mind that I'm running it behind a firewall and not open to the internet so in case you want to do the latter you'll have to set it up behind a reverse proxy or your preferred secure method.

The special features of this server regarding audiobooks:

- Playback position sync between devices
- Bookmarks in case you want to return to a spot later on
- Playback speed selection
- Auto download of the next 2 chapters for uninterrupted listening in case of internet outage and a button to download the full directory you are in.

There is an Android player developed by the same developer that is currently not available in the Play Store so side loading it is the way to go.