head to head · open source
sharp vs pho
sharp has 32,709 GitHub stars, 1,438 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pho has 1,165 stars, 95 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. sharp leads on adoption by 2,708% (32,709 vs 1,165 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; pho is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, pho 8%. sharp 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 | pho | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-08-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 pho if
- You want the pho feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and pho 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 pho
Pho is a serverless photo gallery and synchronization application, written in Dart with Flutter and an embedded Go backend, that lets people browse the photos on their phone and incrementally back them up to network storage they already own, and it is aimed at Android and iOS users who want to replace the built in gallery app.
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or pho more popular?
sharp has 32,709 GitHub stars and pho has 1,165. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and pho free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pho under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and pho?
sharp is written in JavaScript and pho in Dart. 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 pho?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,709 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pho if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.