head to head · open source
sharp vs govips
sharp has 32,755 GitHub stars, 1,441 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. govips has 1,675 stars, 220 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 1,856% (32,755 vs 1,675 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; govips is written in Go under MIT. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, govips 13%. sharp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (image-processing, jpeg, libvips, png), 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 | govips | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 220 |
| 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 govips if
- You want the govips feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and govips 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 govips
govips is an MIT licensed Go library that wraps libvips to give Go developers fast, concurrent image processing and resizing through first class Go types, aimed at teams that build image pipelines, thumbnail services, or format conversion inside Go applications.
read the full govips overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or govips more popular?
sharp has 32,755 GitHub stars and govips has 1,675. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and govips free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and govips under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and govips?
sharp is written in JavaScript and govips in Go. 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 govips?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,755 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose govips if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.