head to head · open source
sharp vs sherloq
sharp has 32,737 GitHub stars, 1,440 forks, 123 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sherloq has 3,218 stars, 316 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. sharp leads on adoption by 917% (32,737 vs 3,218 stars). sharp is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; sherloq is written in Perl under GPL-3.0. sharp has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, sherloq 10%. sharp 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 | sherloq | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Perl |
| Last push | 2026-10-03 | 2026-07-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 316 |
| 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 sherloq if
- You want the sherloq feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Perl
- You evaluated both and sherloq 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 sherloq
Sherloq is an open source, Qt based digital image forensic toolset for researchers, students and practitioners who want to run and compare image authentication techniques themselves rather than trust a closed commercial verdict.
read the full sherloq overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is sharp or sherloq more popular?
sharp has 32,737 GitHub stars and sherloq has 3,218. sharp has the larger community by that measure.
Are sharp and sherloq free?
Both are open source. sharp is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sherloq under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between sharp and sherloq?
sharp is written in JavaScript and sherloq in Perl. 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 sherloq?
Choose sharp if you want the larger community (32,737 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sherloq if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.