head to head · open source
photocraft vs libvips
photocraft has 46,731 GitHub stars, 7,428 forks, 1,208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. libvips has 11,724 stars, 802 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. photocraft leads on adoption by 299% (46,731 vs 11,724 stars). photocraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; libvips is written in C under LGPL-2.1. photocraft has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, libvips 7%. photocraft 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| photocraft | libvips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.4K | ⑂ 802 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick photocraft if
- You weight community size — 47K 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 photocraft
PhotoCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop, written in pure Rust, for image editors who want a native offline app they can own rather than a subscription.
read the full photocraft 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 →
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 photocraft or libvips more popular?
photocraft has 46,731 GitHub stars and libvips has 11,724. photocraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are photocraft and libvips free?
Both are open source. photocraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and libvips under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between photocraft and libvips?
photocraft 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, photocraft or libvips?
Choose photocraft if you want the larger community (46,731 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.