Adobe Lightroom vs darktable
Adobe Lightroom
adobe.comdarktable
darktable.orgSide by side
| Figure | Adobe Lightroom | darktable |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 9 | 1 |
| Spec score · Photo Editing Software | 9.3 (#4) | 8.8 (#16) |
| Spec score · Batch Photo Processing Software | 9.3 (#1) | 8.6 (#8) |
| Spec score · Photography Software | 9.3 (#1) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Spec score · RAW Photo Processing Software | 9.3 (#1) | 8.5 (#3) |
| AI retouching | Yes | Yes |
| Batch editing | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud sync | Yes | No |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Masking tools | Yes | Yes |
| Platform | multi-platform | multi-platform |
| RAW photo support | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Adobe Lightroom
- Creative Cloud Pro for students and teachersPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for students and teachersPriced on request
- Lightroom for teamsPriced on request
- Lightroom for teamsPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for teamsPrice not published
- Creative Cloud Pro for teamsPriced on request
- Lightroom$11.99 a month
- Photography$19.99 a month
- Creative Cloud ProPrice not published
In their own words
Adobe Lightroom
Lightroom is Adobe’s cloud-based service for creating, editing, organizing, storing, and sharing photos across devices. Its photo libraries are searchable, and the editing toolkit includes RAW support, batch editing, masking, AI retouching, AI Lens Blur, Adaptive Presets, portrait Quick Actions, and sensor Dust Removal. Generative Remove uses Adobe Firefly to remove distractions, while Assisted Culling helps sort photos by image quality and group similar shots. Generative upscale with Topaz Gigapixel can enlarge images by up to 4x. Users can collaborate in shared albums, post to social network apps, or share with the Lightroom community. Lightroom is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with a free mobile app and premium features available as an upgrade. Adobe offers a free plan and a 7-day trial; billing begins when the trial ends, with a further 14-day refund period described. Named plans include Lightroom, Photography, and Creative Cloud Pro, as well as student, teacher, and team options.
darktable
darktable is a free photography workflow application for organizing digital negatives and developing raw images. It stores images in a database and provides a zoomable lighttable, while its editing leaves original files unchanged. It imports standard, raw and high dynamic range formats such as JPEG, CR2, NEF, HDR, PFM and RAF. Color tools include automatic display-profile detection on most systems and built-in ICC profiles for sRGB, Adobe RGB, XYZ and linear RGB. Many operations can use OpenCL GPU acceleration, and tethered shooting with live view is supported for some camera brands. Exports include disk storage, email attachments, Piwigo webalbums and HTML-based galleries; many aspects can also be scripted in Lua. Optional AI tools cover object masking, denoising and upscaling, but the Flatpak release does not include them as of September 2026. Downloads are available for Windows, macOS and Linux/Unix options. macOS bundles require version 13.5 or later. The project notes that the learning curve can be steep.