# jacebrowning/memegen

The free and open source API to generate memes.

Repository: https://github.com/jacebrowning/memegen
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/memegen
Homepage: https://memegen.link
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: memes, api, pillow, python, meme-generator, sanic, images
Last push: 2026-08-26T02:02:20+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4099, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1728, forks 251 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:28.421781+00:00)

## What it is
A free and open source REST API for programmatically generating meme images from URLs, built with Python, Sanic, and Pillow. It is stateless, so all template, text, and styling information is encoded in the request URL, and it can be self-hosted or used via the hosted instance at api.memegen.link.

## Use cases
- generate meme images from a URL for a chat bot
- add meme generation to my web app via an API
- programmatically create memes with custom text and templates
- self-host a meme generator API
- render memes as png jpg gif or webp with custom dimensions

## When to choose
- you need meme image generation via simple stateless URLs
- you want a self-hostable image generation service with an OpenAPI spec
- you need multiple output formats including animated GIF and WebP

## When to avoid
- you need general-purpose image editing beyond meme templates
- you need a GUI meme maker rather than a programmatic API
- you need offline generation without running a server or calling the hosted API

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: image-processing, api-framework, http-server
- domain: web-development, media, apis, self-hosted
- platform: python, self-hosted
- tags: memes, meme-generator, sanic, pillow, stateless-api, openapi, web-server, docker

## Member repositories
- jacebrowning/memegen (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:28.421781+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 2026-08-30T03:32:09.360677+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/jacebrowning/memegen (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:28.421781+00:00, sha 5251c6b1fecc)
  - homepage: https://memegen.link (fetched 2026-08-29T11:08:49.974968+00:00, sha e228f6ff128c)
  - site_page: https://api.memegen.link/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T11:08:49.977584+00:00, sha aea9d2fa657c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.