head to head · open source
sharp vs postprocessing
sharp has 32,741 GitHub stars, 1,439 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postprocessing has 2,874 stars, 251 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sharp leads on adoption by 1,039% (32,741 vs 2,874 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; postprocessing is written in JavaScript under Zlib. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, postprocessing 9%. postprocessing 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 | postprocessing | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Zlib |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-04 | 2026-10-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 251 |
| 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 postprocessing if
- You want the postprocessing feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and postprocessing 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 postprocessing
Postprocessing is a JavaScript post processing library for three.js that gives WebGL developers a passes and effects pipeline for applying fullscreen image effects to a rendered scene in real time.
read the full postprocessing overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or postprocessing more popular?
sharp has 32,741 GitHub stars and postprocessing has 2,874. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and postprocessing free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and postprocessing under Zlib. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and postprocessing?
sharp is written in JavaScript and postprocessing in JavaScript. 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 postprocessing?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,741 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose postprocessing if its feature set, stack or Zlib licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.