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, like Jimp, image-js and PureJsImage; sharp and @napi-rs/canvas wrap native libraries (libvips, Skia), Photon and ImageScript 1 are WebAssembly, and so is jsquash (Squoosh's libavif and libjxl, for AVIF and JPEG XL).

Numbers

Operations per second (more is faster), measured 2026-10-30 with Node.js v24.22.1 on INTEL(R) XEON(R) PLATINUM 8573C, ImageScript 3.12.0.

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	PureJsImage	Photon	sharp	jsquash	@napi-rs/canvas
decode JPEG	13.3	6.20	6.17	5.76	7.92	23.7	67.8	–	54.6
decode PNG	27.7	23.9	16.9	7.93	12.3	38.5	45.3	–	48.9
decode WebP (lossy)	11.4	–	–	–	9.93	12.2	34.9	–	62.2
encode JPEG (quality 80)	14.4	19.4	2.84	9.43	7.83	9.20	52.8	–	38.1
encode PNG	7.26	4.07	4.05	2.87	1.78	10.4	7.33	–	2.08
encode WebP (lossless)	0.89	–	–	–	0.40	24.6	0.71	–	2.22
decode AVIF	4.18	–	–	–	0.59	–	12.2	4.87	16.2
decode JPEG XL	2.33	–	–	–	fails	–	–	2.72	15.6
encode AVIF (quality 60)	0.21	–	–	–	0.82	–	0.41	0.45	–
encode JPEG XL (quality 90)	0.43	–	–	–	–	–	–	0.25	–
resize to half	79.2	301	75.7	9.79	15.7	20.6	116	–	379
rotate by 30°	20.6	5.93	1.83	1.37	1.99	4.28	30.1	–	34.6
blur (radius 5)	15.4	–	0.01	1.59	–	6.12	62.8	–	50.0
composite an overlay	414	447	36.7	111	–	164	206	–	351
crop	644	494	60.9	59.2	96.4	209	1,118	–	1,154
clone	834	614	674	610	834	355	906	–	373
render text	1,987	64.8	–	–	–	–	1,899	–	3,398
render SVG	6.52	fails	–	–	–	–	28.3	–	87.4
decode animated GIF	15.5	8.74	–	–	–	–	14.5	–	–
encode animated GIF	4.41	1.36	–	–	–	–	0.95	–	–

Encoded sizes:

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	PureJsImage	Photon	sharp	jsquash	@napi-rs/canvas
photo PNG	2.2 MB	3.0 MB	2.7 MB	2.8 MB	2.1 MB	2.8 MB	2.8 MB	–	2.1 MB
photo JPEG	217 kB	257 kB	260 kB	260 kB	222 kB	257 kB	218 kB	–	218 kB
photo WebP	1.3 MB	–	–	–	2.1 MB	1.7 MB	1.2 MB	–	1.4 MB
graphic PNG	891 kB	802 kB	2.0 MB	736 kB	811 kB	2.2 MB	718 kB	–	1.0 MB
graphic JPEG	275 kB	314 kB	315 kB	315 kB	286 kB	314 kB	275 kB	–	276 kB
graphic WebP	557 kB	–	–	–	758 kB	856 kB	239 kB	–	631 kB
animation GIF	825 kB	1.3 MB	–	–	–	–	720 kB	–	–
photo AVIF	93 kB, 40.9 dB	–	–	–	992 kB, 32.7 dB	–	91 kB, 40.6 dB	80 kB, 40.2 dB	–
photo JPEG XL	245 kB, 44.5 dB	–	–	–	–	–	–	230 kB, 44.1 dB	–
graphic AVIF	147 kB, 41 dB	–	–	–	709 kB, 38.5 dB	–	114 kB, 38.7 dB	136 kB, 40.5 dB	–
graphic JPEG XL	230 kB, 43.4 dB	–	–	–	–	–	–	194 kB, 41.9 dB	–

	ImageScript 3	ImageScript 1	Jimp	image-js	PureJsImage	Photon	sharp	jsquash	@napi-rs/canvas
kind	JavaScript	WebAssembly	JavaScript	JavaScript	JavaScript	WebAssembly	native (libvips)	WebAssembly	native (Skia)
package	imagescript@3.12.0	imagescript@1.3.1	jimp@1.6.1	image-js@1.7.1	purejsimage@0.17.0	@silvia-odwyer/photon-node@0.3.4	sharp@0.35.5	@jsquash/avif@2.1.1 @jsquash/jxl@1.3.0	@napi-rs/canvas@1.0.11
install size	2.4 MB	6.7 MB	26.8 MB	47.8 MB	6.7 MB	2.3 MB	20.3 MB	14.2 MB	35.0 MB
packages	1	1	64	55	1	1	6	3	2

Method

• Inputs (in inputs/, sources in inputs/SOURCES.md): a 1920×1080 photo (JPEG, and made from it when the benchmark starts, PNG, lossy WebP, AVIF by sharp (libaom) and JPEG XL by jsquash (libjxl, effort 7), both at the qualities below), 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.
• AVIF and JPEG XL are encoded at the same nominal quality (60 and 90); as the libraries' scales differ, the file sizes come with their PSNR (of the color over black, decoded by libavif and libjxl). PureJsImage's AVIF encoder has no quality option, and its JPEG XL decoder doesn't support everything libjxl's files use, which shows as failing. jsquash only encodes and decodes AVIF and JPEG XL (it gets the other inputs as pixels); @napi-rs/canvas decodes both with Skia's codecs, but doesn't encode them.
• 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, image-js, PureJsImage 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, PureJsImage (which has no decoded images) one from a BMP back to a BMP, @napi-rs/canvas draws into a new canvas. PureJsImage has no blur, composite, rendering or animated GIFs.
• 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.
• Threads: ImageScript uses worker threads where they pay off (the processors available, at most 8), and sharp gets as many (sharp.concurrency(); its default on glibc Linux without jemalloc, like on CI, is one). The other libraries run on one thread (jsquash turns its threaded builds off in Node).
• 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.