README.md

ImageScript benchmark

How ImageScript compares to other image libraries for Node.js: speed, file sizes and what installing each takes. ImageScript is plain JavaScript with no dependencies, so it runs wherever JavaScript does; sharp and @napi-rs/canvas wrap native libraries (libvips, Skia), Photon and ImageScript 1 are WebAssembly.

Numbers

Operations per second (more is faster), measured 2026-10-17 with Node.js v24.21.0 on AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor, ImageScript 3.3.0.

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	Photon	sharp	@napi-rs/canvas
decode JPEG	11.8	6.37	6.83	6.37	21.2	69.6	49.4
decode PNG	32.9	30.7	15.8	8.33	41.0	53.6	54.6
decode WebP (lossy)	10.4	–	–	–	11.2	36.4	61.5
encode JPEG (quality 80)	12.5	19.4	2.50	9.47	8.87	56.3	34.8
encode PNG	8.77	3.90	4.18	2.67	9.78	7.27	2.14
encode WebP (lossless)	1.60	–	–	–	23.9	0.68	2.12
resize to half	73.2	370	61.1	11.1	15.2	60.3	393
rotate by 30°	27.9	5.57	1.76	1.15	4.67	14.3	38.5
blur (radius 5)	13.9	–	0.01	1.25	6.60	29.8	60.0
composite an overlay	447	608	31.9	116	169	113	447
crop	825	754	50.7	65.5	204	1,307	1,437
clone	1,382	934	1,033	885	419	1,520	490
render text	2,103	59.6	–	–	–	2,007	3,495
render SVG	6.83	fails	–	–	–	26.6	93.9
decode animated GIF	14.8	7.90	–	–	–	17.2	–
encode animated GIF	5.02	1.16	–	–	–	0.88	–

Encoded sizes:

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	Photon	sharp	@napi-rs/canvas
photo PNG	2.2 MB	3.0 MB	2.7 MB	2.8 MB	2.8 MB	2.8 MB	2.1 MB
photo JPEG	217 kB	257 kB	260 kB	260 kB	257 kB	218 kB	218 kB
photo WebP	1.4 MB	–	–	–	1.7 MB	1.2 MB	1.4 MB
graphic PNG	1.1 MB	802 kB	2.0 MB	736 kB	2.2 MB	718 kB	1.0 MB
graphic JPEG	275 kB	314 kB	315 kB	315 kB	314 kB	275 kB	276 kB
graphic WebP	580 kB	–	–	–	856 kB	239 kB	631 kB
animation GIF	825 kB	1.3 MB	–	–	–	720 kB	–

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	Photon	sharp	@napi-rs/canvas
kind	JavaScript	WebAssembly	JavaScript	JavaScript	WebAssembly	native (libvips)	native (Skia)
package	imagescript@3.3.0	imagescript@1.3.1	jimp@1.6.1	image-js@1.7.1	@silvia-odwyer/photon-node@0.3.4	sharp@0.35.5	@napi-rs/canvas@1.0.11
install size	1.1 MB	6.7 MB	26.8 MB	47.8 MB	2.3 MB	20.3 MB	35.0 MB
packages	1	1	64	55	1	6	2

Method

• Inputs (in inputs/, sources in inputs/SOURCES.md): a 1920×1080 photo (JPEG, and made from it when the benchmark starts, PNG and lossy WebP), a 1434×1434 graphic with transparency (PNG), a 445×445 diagram with transparency placed on the photo (PNG), a 300×300 GIF with 101 frames.
• Rendering: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, 0123456789" in Source Sans 3 at 64px, and tests/svgs/features.svg (gradients, clipping, CSS) at 1920 pixels wide. Jimp and Photon can't render TrueType/OpenType fonts or SVGs; ImageScript 1 crashes on this SVG; @napi-rs/canvas (Skia's SVG module) ignores its CSS, so it draws a little less.
• Every operation starts from the same decoded image and returns a new one: libraries that change images in place clone first, sharp runs a pipeline from raw pixels back to raw pixels, @napi-rs/canvas draws into a new canvas.
• Where the library lets you choose, resizing is bilinear (ImageScript 1 only has nearest neighbor), blurring is gaussian with a radius or sigma of 5, rotating grows the image to fit. Each library uses its own defaults otherwise, e.g. its PNG compression level.
• tinybench, at least 1.5 seconds and 3 runs per measurement, every library in its own process.
• The release workflow runs the benchmark for every release and commits the results, on a GitHub Actions runner; runners vary, so compare libraries within one run rather than between runs.
• Install sizes: npm install <library> in an empty project, the apparent size of node_modules.

Run it: npm install in this directory, then node run.js (on an idle machine; IMAGESCRIPT=local measures this checkout after npm run build instead of the version from npm), node installs.js and node report.js.