TL;DR — @vercel/og is a broader creative-automation product. ogsmith does exactly one thing: og:image from a GET request, with a 250-images/mo free tier and paid plans from $9/mo. If social cards are the whole job, the specialized tool is simpler and cheaper.
ogsmith vs @vercel/og at a glance
| ogsmith | @vercel/og | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ✓ 250 images/mo, forever, no card | n/a — it's a library, you pay for compute |
| Entry paid plan | $9/mo — 10,000 images | Free (OSS) — runs inside your own deployment |
| High volume | $29/mo — 100,000 images | Higher tiers / custom |
| Rendering | satori + resvg on Lambda (~5ms compute, synchronous) | satori in your edge/serverless functions |
| Integration | One GET URL in a meta tag | API/SDK + template setup |
| CDN cache hits | ✓ Free, don't count against quota | Varies by plan |
| Signed public URLs | ✓ HMAC per-URL | Varies |
Competitor pricing and features checked against their official sites in July 2026 — check their pricing pages for current numbers.
The whole integration
<meta property="og:image"
content="https://api.ogsmith.dev/v1/og?title=Your+post+title&template=article&kid=…&sig=…">That URL renders this, live:
When @vercel/og is the better choice
- You are already on Vercel with a Next.js app and want full JSX control over the design.
- You want zero external dependencies — the renderer deploys with your app.
- Your design needs go beyond what parameterized templates express.
When ogsmith is the better choice
- Not on Vercel? @vercel/og is code you deploy and operate in a supported serverless runtime. ogsmith is a plain HTTPS endpoint — it works identically from Hugo, Ghost, Astro on any host, WordPress, or hand-written HTML.
- No design work: six ready templates tuned for social cards (font loading, title scaling, truncation, dark/light themes are already solved).
- No maintenance: font files, emoji, satori version bumps, and CDN caching are our problem.
- Signed URLs out of the box, so public embeds can't be repurposed to render arbitrary content on your quota.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't ogsmith just hosted @vercel/og?
Roughly, yes — plus the parts you'd still have to build: designed templates, font pipeline, immutable CDN caching, HMAC-signed URLs, API keys, and usage quotas. If assembling that sounds fun, use the library. If you want the meta tag done today, use the API.
Do I need to be on a specific host or framework?
No. The integration is an image URL. Anything that can emit an tag — which is every website — can use ogsmith.
Can I use ogsmith from a Next.js app?
Yes — see the Next.js guide. You build a signed URL in generateMetadata (a few lines of node:crypto) and skip shipping a render function entirely.