head to head · open source
OpenCut vs libvips
OpenCut has 89,790 GitHub stars, 8,865 forks, 378 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. libvips has 11,655 stars, 797 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. OpenCut leads on adoption by 670% (89,790 vs 11,655 stars). OpenCut is written in TypeScript under MIT; libvips is written in C under LGPL-2.1. OpenCut 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
| OpenCut | libvips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-08-10 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.9K | ⑂ 797 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenCut if
- You weight community size — 90K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 OpenCut
OpenCut is a free, MIT licensed video editor that runs in the browser and is being rebuilt to serve web, desktop, and mobile from a single codebase, aimed at creators who want an open source alternative to CapCut.
read the full OpenCut 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 OpenCut or libvips more popular?
OpenCut has 89,790 GitHub stars and libvips has 11,655. OpenCut has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenCut and libvips free?
Both are open source. OpenCut is licensed under MIT and libvips under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenCut and libvips?
OpenCut is written in TypeScript 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, OpenCut or libvips?
Choose OpenCut if you want the larger community (89,790 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose libvips if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.