head to head · open source
sharp vs FerrumPix
sharp has 32,821 GitHub stars, 1,448 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. FerrumPix has 745 stars, 18 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharp leads on adoption by 4,306% (32,821 vs 745 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; FerrumPix is written in Visual Basic .NET under GPL-3.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, FerrumPix 2%. FerrumPix was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (image), 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 | FerrumPix | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 745 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Visual Basic .NET |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 18 |
| 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 FerrumPix if
- You want the FerrumPix feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Visual Basic .NET
- You evaluated both and FerrumPix 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 FerrumPix
FerrumPix FerrumPix is a desktop photo manager and image editor for Linux and Windows, with experimental ARM64 and macOS builds. Browse your folders, sort and rate what is in them, look at photos properly, and edit them all in one application, all on your own machine. It can also connect to a self hosted Immich or Nextcloud server. It is built with Avalonia UI and .NET 10, in VB.NET, which I still love even though it is rare nowadays. This started as a private project an application built exactly the way I always wanted one to look and work and it is free and open source for anyone who finds it useful. To be…
read the full FerrumPix overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or FerrumPix more popular?
sharp has 32,821 GitHub stars and FerrumPix has 745. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and FerrumPix free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and FerrumPix under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and FerrumPix?
sharp is written in JavaScript and FerrumPix in Visual Basic .NET. 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 FerrumPix?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,821 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose FerrumPix if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.