head to head · open source
sharp vs filepond
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars, 1,437 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. filepond has 16,393 stars, 848 forks, 142 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 99% (32,695 vs 16,393 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; filepond is written in JavaScript under MIT. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, filepond 5%. sharp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (image-processing, javascript), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| sharp | filepond | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 848 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick sharp if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick filepond if
- You want the filepond feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and filepond fits your workflow better
About sharp
sharp is a high performance Node.js image processing library that converts large images in common formats into smaller, web friendly JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and AVIF files, and it is built for JavaScript developers who need fast, dependency light resizing inside Node.js, Deno or Bun applications.
read the full sharp overview →
About filepond
FilePond is an MIT licensed JavaScript file upload library for front end developers who need drag and drop, clipboard paste, API driven uploads, and automatic image optimization in one dependency.
read the full filepond overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or filepond more popular?
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars and filepond has 16,393. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and filepond free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and filepond under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and filepond?
sharp is written in JavaScript and filepond in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, sharp or filepond?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,695 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose filepond if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.