GraphicsMagick vs Sharp
GraphicsMagick
graphicsmagick.org
Sharp
sharp.pixelplumbing.comSide by side
| Figure | GraphicsMagick | Sharp |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Image Converter Software | 8.8 (#7) | 7.3 (#29) |
| Image operations | Documented operations include resizing, rotation, sharpening, color reduction, effects, thumbnail montages, transparency, animation, compositing, drawing, borders, and image comparison. | It supports image resizing, rotation, extraction, compositing, and gamma correction. |
| License | GraphicsMagick is distributed under an MIT-style license that the project says permits open-source, GPL, and proprietary applications. | The project is licensed under Apache License 2.0. |
| Performance | Image processing uses OpenMP multi-threading so CPU-bound tasks can scale as processor cores are added; OpenMP requires a compatible compiler. | The site says image resizing is typically 4x–5x faster than the quickest ImageMagick and GraphicsMagick settings, using libvips. |
| Supported systems | The project states that it compiles on modern Unix-like systems, Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows 10 or later. | Prebuilt binaries are provided for macOS, Linux and Windows architectures, with stated architecture and system-library requirements. |
Plans
In their own words
GraphicsMagick
GraphicsMagick is free image-processing software with command-line tools, programming interfaces, and graphical interfaces for image conversion, editing, and 2D vector rendering. It can resize, rotate, sharpen, reduce colors, apply effects, compare and composite images, create montages and GIF animations, and draw shapes or text. It reads, writes, and manipulates images in more than 92 major formats, including AVIF, GIF, HEIC, JPEG, JPEG-2000, JXL, PNG, PDF, TIFF, and WebP. The software also supports very large images, including gigapixel-size files. OpenMP multi-threading can scale CPU-bound processing across processor cores when built with a compatible compiler. Interfaces include C, C++, Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, Tcl, Ruby, Windows .NET, and Windows COM, alongside the command line. Some format support relies on external components, such as Ghostscript for PDF and PostScript or dcraw for camera RAW formats. GraphicsMagick is distributed under an MIT-style license for open-source, proprietary, or GPLed applications. The project lists version 1.3.48, released July 23, 2026, as current and recommends updating because significant issues are addressed in almost every release.
Sharp
Sharp has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.