head to head · open source
sharp vs lightcraft
sharp has 32,748 GitHub stars, 1,440 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lightcraft has 9,989 stars, 3,378 forks, 347 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharp leads on adoption by 228% (32,748 vs 9,989 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; lightcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, lightcraft 34%. lightcraft 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.
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Side by side
| sharp | lightcraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 10.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| 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 lightcraft if
- You want the lightcraft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lightcraft 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 lightcraft
LightCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Lightroom written in pure Rust, aimed at photographers who want a native, non destructive photo library and raw editor on their own machine.
read the full lightcraft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or lightcraft more popular?
sharp has 32,748 GitHub stars and lightcraft has 9,989. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and lightcraft free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lightcraft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and lightcraft?
sharp is written in JavaScript and lightcraft in Rust. 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 lightcraft?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,748 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lightcraft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.