head to head · open source
filmcraft vs libvips
filmcraft has 12,692 GitHub stars, 5,140 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. libvips has 11,733 stars, 801 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. filmcraft leads on adoption by 8% (12,692 vs 11,733 stars). filmcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; libvips is written in C under LGPL-2.1. filmcraft has attracted 40% as many forks as stars, libvips 7%. libvips 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
| filmcraft | libvips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.1K | ⑂ 801 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick filmcraft if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick libvips if
- You want the libvips feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-2.1 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and libvips fits your workflow better
About filmcraft
FilmCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of the Adobe Premiere Pro editing workflow, written in pure Rust, for professional editors who want a native, self owned non linear editor on desktop or in the browser.
read the full filmcraft overview →
About libvips
libvips is a demand driven, horizontally threaded image processing library in C, licensed LGPL 2.1 or later, for developers who need to resize, convert and analyse large images quickly without exhausting memory.
read the full libvips overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is filmcraft or libvips more popular?
filmcraft has 12,692 GitHub stars and libvips has 11,733. filmcraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are filmcraft and libvips free?
Both are open source. filmcraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and libvips under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between filmcraft and libvips?
filmcraft is written in Rust and libvips in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, filmcraft or libvips?
Choose filmcraft if you want the larger community (12,692 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose libvips if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.