imgproxy vs pngcrush

imgproxy is a self-hosted HTTP server that transforms images on demand using a source URL and processing options. It can resize, crop, trim, rotate, pad, watermark, apply filters and color adjustments, and chain processing steps. Sources include HTTP(S), local files, Amazon S3-compatible storage, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, and OpenStack Swift. Supported formats include JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL, GIF, SVG, ICO, HEIC, BMP, TIFF, and animated GIF and WebP. Optimization can remove metadata and ICC profiles, quantize PNGs, and serve WebP, AVIF, or JPEG XL when a browser supports the format. imgproxy can run in Docker, Kubernetes with Helm, cloud environments, or on a local machine. Security options include signed URLs, authorization headers, source and file-size limits, dimension checks, URL expiration, and SVG sanitization. Pro adds video, PDF, and Photoshop previews, advanced compression and watermarking, object detection and cropping, automatic format selection, and priority support. The open-source version uses the MIT license. A free plan and 14-day trial are listed; Pro starts at $49 a month.

pngcrush is a free command-line utility for losslessly optimizing PNG files. It tries compression levels and PNG filter methods to reduce the size of a file’s IDAT datastream, and supports batch processing. Its chunk controls can remove unwanted ancillary chunks or add gAMA, tRNS, iCCP, and textual chunks. The supported format is PNG; image resizing and API access are not provided. pngcrush runs from MSDOS, UNIX, or Linux command lines, and the maker links to precompiled Windows binaries for an MSDOS window. Source code is available from SourceForge and the pmt git repository, with libpng and zlib included in the distribution. The maker permits use, modification, and redistribution without a fee; the license is equivalent to, but not identical with, the libpng license. Build choices matter: the maker warns about overflow vulnerabilities when compiling with certain older unpatched libpng versions, and says a build statically linked with the supplied zlib is believed to avoid a particular double-free bug. The SourceForge files page lists pngcrush-1.8.11.tar.xz as the latest version. Free graphical applications that embed pngcrush are also noted by the maker.