head to head · open source
sharp vs photoview
sharp has 32,692 GitHub stars, 1,436 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. photoview has 6,528 stars, 485 forks, 189 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. sharp leads on adoption by 401% (32,692 vs 6,528 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; photoview is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, photoview 7%. photoview was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (exif), 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 | photoview | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 485 |
| 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 photoview if
- You want the photoview feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and photoview 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 photoview
Photoview is an AGPL 3.0 licensed photo and video gallery server written in Go that scans an existing folder of media on a self hosted machine and serves it as a fast, browsable website built for photographers.
read the full photoview overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or photoview more popular?
sharp has 32,692 GitHub stars and photoview has 6,528. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and photoview free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and photoview under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and photoview?
sharp is written in JavaScript and photoview 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 photoview?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,692 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose photoview if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.