# libvips/libvips

A fast image processing library with low memory needs.

Repository: https://github.com/libvips/libvips
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/libvips
Homepage: https://libvips.org
Language: C
License: LGPL-2.1
License Family: copyleft
Topics: libvips, jpeg, openslide, imagemagick, tiff, gif, webp, graphicsmagick, openexr, c, pdfium, heic, cpp, svg, pdf, png, nifti, image-processing, hdr
Last push: 2026-08-25T15:34:01+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5699, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 8, "gap_med": 47, "n_releases_24m": 14}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 11602, forks 797 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:48.935896+00:00)

## What it is
libvips is a fast, demand-driven, horizontally threaded image processing library with low memory needs, offering around 300 operations across arithmetic, convolution, resampling, colour, and more. It supports a wide range of formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, PDF, SVG, GIF, OpenEXR, OpenSlide, etc.) and provides C/C++ APIs, a CLI, and bindings for many languages.

## Use cases
- resize and thumbnail images quickly with low memory usage
- convert images between formats like JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, and TIFF
- process very large images such as whole-slide microscopy scans via OpenSlide
- rasterize PDFs and SVGs to images
- build an image processing backend for a web service or CMS
- batch-process image pipelines from the command line with vips and vipsthumbnail
- compose, crop, rotate, and colour-correct images programmatically
- handle animated GIFs and multipage TIFFs

## When to choose
- you need fast image processing with much lower memory use than ImageMagick
- you need broad format support including scientific formats like FITS, NIfTI, and OpenSlide
- you are building a high-throughput image service (e.g. thumbnails, imgproxy-style resizing)
- you want bindings for Python, Ruby, PHP, .NET, Go, Lua, Elixir, Java, or Nim
- you need a lightweight CLI for scripted image conversions

## When to avoid
- you need advanced drawing, text rendering, or creative design features better served by ImageMagick or a graphics editor
- you need GPU-accelerated image processing
- you require a permissive license, since libvips is LGPL-2.1-or-later
- you need a pure-language implementation without native dependencies

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: image-processing, cli, sdk
- domain: image-processing, graphics, media, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli, python, rust, go, ruby, php, jvm, dotnet, lua, elixir
- tags: image-formats, thumbnailing, low-memory, streaming-pipeline, bindings, jpeg, png, tiff, webp, heic, avif, pdf, svg, gif, hdr, openslide, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- libvips/libvips (main) score 95

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:48.935896+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:15:28.616100+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/libvips/libvips (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:48.935896+00:00, sha c6b904938f52)
  - homepage: https://libvips.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:13:56.038742+00:00, sha c68b3be407aa)
  - site_page: https://www.libvips.org/install.html (fetched 2026-08-29T08:13:56.041532+00:00, sha c99c20eb7f0b)
  - site_page: https://www.libvips.org/API/current (fetched 2026-08-29T08:13:56.043598+00:00, sha c8b31ffcdebd)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.