Hi, it seems vips and/or sharp perform better with jemalloc: https://github.com/libvips/libvips/issues/1064 https://github.com/lovell/sharp/issues/955 https://github.com/lovell/sharp/issues/2607 https://github.com/libvips/libvips/blob/master/doc/Developer-checklist.md#linux-memory-allocator Upstream doesn't require it because they want to keep their software compatible with other platforms. Maybe the vips debian package could link to jemalloc when possible. pkg-config --libs jemalloc Not sure it's worth the trouble, but at least some debian packages are using jemalloc.