head to head · open source
sharp vs chafa
sharp has 32,726 GitHub stars, 1,440 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chafa has 5,284 stars, 118 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharp leads on adoption by 519% (32,726 vs 5,284 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%. chafa 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 | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-27 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 118 |
| 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 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 chafa
Chafa is a command line utility and C library that converts image data, including animated GIFs, into ANSI/Unicode character art or terminal graphics formats, and it is for anyone who wants to view images inside a terminal.
read the full chafa overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or chafa more popular?
sharp has 32,726 GitHub stars and chafa has 5,284. 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 (32,726 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.