ImageMagick - bloat = GraphicsMagick

Don't get me wrong, ImageMagick is awesome. But none of my daily batch image processing require it's extraordinary capabilities. I'd prefer a more lightweight solution. Actually, Perl's Imager is fine, despite having a completely different interface. Enter GraphicsMagick:

~/2880x1800$ "time" montage *.jpg -tile 6x6 ~/thumb1.jpg
       12.35 real         5.32 user         2.84 sys
~/2880x1800$ "time" gm montage *.jpg -tile 6x6 ~/thumb2.jpg
        1.63 real         1.35 user         0.15 sys

Same API, same CLI tool options, almost 8x speed increase!
Not bad at all. Plus, their official site cites more serious benchmarks:

GM is used to process billions of files at the world's largest photo sites (e.g. Flickr and Etsy).