# nothings/stb

stb single-file public domain libraries for C/C++

Repository: https://github.com/nothings/stb
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/stb
Homepage: https://nothings.org
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-08-02T06:42:09+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 75/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4483, "days_push": 31, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 34513, forks 8075 (observed 2026-08-28T04:12:00.621673+00:00)

## What it is
A collection of single-file, public domain (or MIT) C/C++ libraries covering image loading/writing/resizing, TrueType font rasterization, Ogg Vorbis decoding, typesafe containers, noise generation, and other utilities. Each library ships as one header/source file with no dependencies, designed for easy drop-in use.

## Use cases
- load png and jpg images in c without dependencies
- decode ogg vorbis audio files
- rasterize truetype fonts in a game engine
- resize images with good quality in c
- add dynamic arrays and hash tables to c code
- embed a tilemap editor in a game
- write png images from c++

## When to choose
- you need dependency-free, single-file C/C++ libraries
- you want public domain licensing with no attribution requirements
- you're building a game or graphics app needing image/font/audio loading
- you want simple, battle-tested utilities like dynamic arrays in C

## When to avoid
- your project has strict security review requirements, since fixes are discussed publicly and merged slowly
- you need feature-rich, actively maintained multimedia frameworks like FFmpeg or FreeType
- you need GPU-accelerated or highly optimized image processing at scale

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: image-processing, audio-processing, graphics, parser, file-system, compression
- domain: graphics, image-processing, developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: cpp, c, cross-platform, game-engine
- tags: single-file-libraries, public-domain, header-only, image-loading, truetype-fonts, ogg-vorbis, gamedev, no-dependencies, game-development, audio

## Member repositories
- nothings/stb (main) score 75

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:00.621673+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 2026-08-29T16:27:28.894602+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/nothings/stb (fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:00.621673+00:00, sha 3dadec19026d)
  - homepage: https://nothings.org (fetched 2026-08-29T07:48:14.272665+00:00, sha 9b6bd84a2bd9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.