Image Processing
2 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars — scroll down for our analysis.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Language | License | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sharp High performance Node.js image processing | 32.1k | +55/wk | JavaScript | Apache License 2.0 | 79 |
 Squoosh Make images smaller using best-in-class codecs | 25.0k | +39/wk | TypeScript | Apache License 2.0 | 79 |
Our Analysis
Sharp is the image processing library that Node.js developers reach for when they need speed. Resize, crop, rotate, convert formats — all powered by libvips, which is 4-8x faster than ImageMagick. If your app handles user uploads, Sharp is the answer. If you're building anything that touches images in Node.js — thumbnails, avatars, social cards, image optimization — Sharp does it in milliseconds. Jimp is pure JavaScript but painfully slow for production. ImageMagick is the legacy option with a confusing API. Pillow is great but Python-only. Cloudinary is the managed commercial alternative. Best for any Node.js developer processing images server-side. The streaming API handles large images without blowing up memory. WebP, AVIF, and HEIF support is built in. The catch: Sharp uses native bindings (libvips), which means platform-specific builds. Deployment to serverless platforms (Lambda, Vercel) sometimes needs special bundling. The API is powerful but the method chaining can get confusing with complex pipelines. And if you need text rendering or complex compositing, you'll still need a canvas library.
Squoosh is a browser-based image compressor from Google Chrome Labs that runs entirely client-side — drag in a PNG, adjust the quality slider, compare original vs compressed in a split view, and download in WebP, AVIF, JPEG-XL, or MozJPEG. Your images never leave your browser. Bookmark squoosh.app right now. For indie hackers optimizing landing page images, it's the fastest path from "my hero image is 2MB" to "my hero image is 90KB and looks identical." TinyPNG is the popular alternative but uploads to a server and limits free usage. Sharp (Node.js) is the programmatic option for build pipelines. ImageMagick is the CLI classic. The catch: Squoosh processes one image at a time — no batch processing. The open-source repo hasn't seen major updates recently. For automated image optimization in a build pipeline, you need Sharp or @squoosh/lib (which is deprecated). Squoosh is a manual tool for quick one-off optimizations, not a production pipeline component.