head to head · open source
Shotcut vs libvips
Shotcut has 15,242 GitHub stars, 1,510 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. libvips has 11,656 stars, 797 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shotcut leads on adoption by 31% (15,242 vs 11,656 stars). Shotcut is written in C++ under GPL-3.0; libvips is written in C under LGPL-2.1. Shotcut has attracted 10% 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
| Shotcut | libvips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | C++ | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 797 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Shotcut if
- You weight community size — 15K 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 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 Shotcut
Shotcut is a free, open source, cross platform video editor written in C++ and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It lives in the Qt and MLT ecosystem, using Qt for its application and user interface and MLT as its multimedia authoring framework. It provides regularly built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows, and is positioned as an open alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve (Studio).
read the full Shotcut 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 Shotcut or libvips more popular?
Shotcut has 15,242 GitHub stars and libvips has 11,656. Shotcut has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shotcut and libvips free?
Both are open source. Shotcut is licensed under GPL-3.0 and libvips under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Shotcut and libvips?
Shotcut is written in C++ 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, Shotcut or libvips?
Choose Shotcut if you want the larger community (15,242 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose libvips if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.