head to head · open source
sharp vs libvips
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars, 1,437 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. libvips has 11,656 stars, 797 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharp leads on adoption by 180% (32,695 vs 11,656 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; libvips is written in C under LGPL-2.1. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, libvips 7%. sharp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (image-processing, jpeg, libvips), 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 | libvips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 797 |
| 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 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 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 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 sharp or libvips more popular?
sharp has 32,695 GitHub stars and libvips has 11,656. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and libvips free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and libvips under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and libvips?
sharp is written in JavaScript 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, sharp or libvips?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,695 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.