head to head · open source
sharp vs PhotoEditor
sharp has 32,692 GitHub stars, 1,436 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. PhotoEditor has 4,509 stars, 1,049 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 625% (32,692 vs 4,509 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; PhotoEditor is written in Kotlin under MIT. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, PhotoEditor 23%. PhotoEditor 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 | PhotoEditor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 PhotoEditor if
- You want the PhotoEditor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and PhotoEditor 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 PhotoEditor
PhotoEditor is an open source Kotlin library for Android that adds paint, text, filter, emoji, and sticker editing directly inside an app's own image workflow, and it is aimed at Android developers who need story style or social editing features without building that stack themselves.
read the full PhotoEditor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or PhotoEditor more popular?
sharp has 32,692 GitHub stars and PhotoEditor has 4,509. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and PhotoEditor free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and PhotoEditor under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and PhotoEditor?
sharp is written in JavaScript and PhotoEditor in Kotlin. 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 PhotoEditor?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,692 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose PhotoEditor if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.