head to head · open source
sharp vs chafa
sharp has 32,844 GitHub stars, 1,452 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chafa has 5,399 stars, 125 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 508% (32,844 vs 5,399 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; chafa is written in C under LGPL-3.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, chafa 2%. sharp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (image-processing), 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 | chafa | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 125 |
| 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 chafa if
- You want the chafa feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and chafa fits your workflow better
About sharp
sharp The typical use case for this high speed Node API module is to convert large images in common formats to smaller, web friendly JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF and AVIF images of varying dimensions. It can be used with all JavaScript runtimes that provide support for Node API v9, including Node.js ( = 20.9.0), Deno and Bun. Resizing an image is typically 4x 5x faster than using the quickest ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick settings due to its use of libvips. Colour spaces, embedded ICC profiles and alpha transparency channels are all handled correctly. Lanczos resampling ensures quality is not sacrificed for speed. As…
read the full sharp overview →
About chafa
    About • Gallery • Packages • Development About Chafa is a command line utility that converts image data, including animated GIFs, into graphics formats or ANSI/Unicode character art suitable for display in a terminal. It has broad feature support, allowing it to be used on devices ranging from historical teleprinters to modern terminal emulators and everything in between. The core functionality is provided by a C library with a public, well documented API. Both library and frontend tools are covered by the Lesser GPL license, version 3 or later (LGPLv3+). The official web pages and C API…
read the full chafa overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or chafa more popular?
sharp has 32,844 GitHub stars and chafa has 5,399. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and chafa free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and chafa under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and chafa?
sharp is written in JavaScript and chafa 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 chafa?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,844 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose chafa if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.