head to head · open source
sharp vs imgproxy
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars, 1,437 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. imgproxy has 11,080 stars, 776 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 195% (32,695 vs 11,080 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; imgproxy is written in Go under Apache-2.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, imgproxy 7%. sharp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (avif, image, image-processing, jpeg), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| sharp | imgproxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 11K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 776 |
| 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 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 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 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 →
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Photo & Video Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Photo & Video Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or imgproxy more popular?
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars and imgproxy has 11,080. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and imgproxy free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and imgproxy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and imgproxy?
sharp is written in JavaScript 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, sharp or imgproxy?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,695 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose imgproxy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.