head to head · open source
Darktable vs imgproxy
Darktable has 13,106 GitHub stars, 1,434 forks, 678 open issues and last shipped today. imgproxy has 11,080 stars, 776 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Darktable leads on adoption by 18% (13,106 vs 11,080 stars). Darktable is written in C under GPL-3.0; imgproxy is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Darktable has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, imgproxy 7%. Darktable was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Darktable | imgproxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 11K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 776 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Darktable if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick imgproxy if
- You want the imgproxy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and imgproxy fits your workflow better
About Darktable
Darktable is an open source photography workflow application and non destructive raw developer. It acts as a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers, and it lives in the open source photography ecosystem as a C project licensed under the GPL 3.0. It manages digital negatives in a database, lets a user view them through a zoomable lighttable, and supports raw development, enhancement, and export to local or remote storage.
read the full Darktable overview →
About imgproxy
imgproxy is a fast, secure standalone HTTP server, written in Go and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, that resizes, processes, and converts images on the fly for web developers, platform engineers, and teams that want image processing to live in a dedicated service instead of inside their applications.
read the full imgproxy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Darktable or imgproxy more popular?
Darktable has 13,106 GitHub stars and imgproxy has 11,080. Darktable has the larger community by that measure.
Are Darktable and imgproxy free?
Both are open source. Darktable is licensed under GPL-3.0 and imgproxy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Darktable and imgproxy?
Darktable is written in C and imgproxy in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Darktable or imgproxy?
Choose Darktable if you want the larger community (13,106 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose imgproxy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.