Photography plays a huge part in my writing career and personal life. For the majority of my photo editing needs, Adobe Lightroom Classic has long been my go-to software for projects large and small. It’s the juggernaut of the industry, known for its excellent features and great support. What’s not to love?

Its subscription fee, however, can be a pain. At the time of writing, Adobe Lightroom, along with 1TB of Adobe cloud storage, costs $12 per month or $120 per year. In contrast, Darktable is open-source and completely free. Its powerful suite of modules has garnered the love of many pro photographers, with some swearing by it over Lightroom.

Although Adobe's monthly fee isn't much for established photographers, it can hurt for budding photographers penny-pinching to fund better gear. Given the cost benefits of Darktable, I wanted to explore how the features of the two software compare. Here's how the two stack up.

Learning curve

Darktable will take longer to learn than Lightroom

Lightroom’s interface is superbly arranged. It plates all the most common settings first in their respective panels, with more advanced options tucked away behind a click or two. Once users become accustomed to the basic modules, they can fine-tune them manually to get the best results. Lightroom also has a few options to help photographers package their photos. It has a customizable slideshow mode and even an option to export the photos as a basic web gallery to be deployed as a part of a website.

Darktable cranks the customization level up to 11 from the get-go. It lets photographers fully exercise their creativity. However, the sheer number and depth of its module library can feel overwhelming at first. Another consideration is the way photography is taught. Since Lightroom is the industry standard, there are abundant learning resources available. While there are plenty of excellent materials for Darktable, too, if you’re planning to take a photography class, there’s a good chance it will require Lightroom.

Photo imports and file management

Both are excellent file managers

Both Darktable and Lightroom let users categorize their imports using ratings, color tags, metadata, capture settings, and more in their respective import views. However, Lightroom presents the imports in a grid with detailed thumbnails, whereas Darktable presents them in a list and generates smaller thumbnails. Although this makes selecting the right shots a little more difficult in Darktable, it does offer expandable thumbnails once the photos have been imported.

Both software also let users apply a few rudimentary edits in the import view. However, these edits aren't very useful, as the tools in the dedicated editing panels are far more powerful.

Module complexity

You'll love Darktable if you want to adjust every detail

Unlike most modules in Lightroom that just work when you select them and hit apply, Darktable gives you almost complete control over your style.

For example, let’s look at how to remove blemishes in both programs. In Lightroom, simply select the Spot Removal module and draw over the area you want to remove. It will automatically fill the area with another part of the image. If users are dissatisfied with the automated source selection, they can manually select the sampling area or make Lightroom choose another source by pressing the “/” key. Additionally, Lightroom offers AI-generated fill and object detection.

The equivalent module in Darktable is in the Retouch module. It also removes imperfections in photos but includes an extra Wavelet Decompose slider. This slider lets you manually select sampling areas from various detail levels. Getting the right result in Darktable can take longer and require more effort, but for tricky textures, it may yield better results than sampling from a single detail layer.

Learning spot removal took me five minutes of experimenting in Lightroom, but it took me ten minutes and a YouTube video tutorial in Darktable. That’s just one of many differences between the two software programs.

Performance

Both run great with minimal hiccups

Interestingly, RAW image files tend to look flatter in Darktable than in Lightroom. The difference is subtle and is only apparent when the programs are open side-by-side. Still, for color-sensitive professionals, this can affect how much editing is applied to each image.

As for performance, neither feels much faster than the other during editing and exporting. That said, I rarely work with more than 50 images at a time, and larger batches may perform differently. Darktable did freeze up a few times in Slideshow mode, but I didn’t experience any hard crashes or loss of progress in either software.

Plug-ins, app integration, and mobile editing

Darktable lacking a mobile app may limit editing on the go

Both Lightroom and Darktable support plug-ins that add even more functions. With that said, it's much easier to discover new plug-ins and presets for Lightroom than it is for Darktable; there are tons to choose from on Adobe Exchange. As for Darktable, there’s no centralized plug-in hub. Instead, you’ll need to know what you’re looking for and scroll through Google search.

Lightroom lets users send a photo from its Develop panel straight to Photoshop, with no exporting required. This is incredibly useful for applying edits that are not available in Lightroom, such as warping, adding graphics assets, creating layers, and so forth. Another benefit to using Lightroom is that it has a mobile app with shared cloud storage. If you’re on the go, you can make quick edits on your phone or tablet and share it anywhere. Darktable does not currently have a mobile app.

Darktable has the edge in the number of devices it can run on simultaneously. While you can install Lightroom on multiple PCs, you can only sign in to two simultaneously. This means more frequent sign-ins if you work on more than two PCs or Macs at once.

Which one should you choose?

There’s no right answer. Each has pros and cons, and your choice depends on what you want to achieve in your photography. If you crave total control over your creative process and are willing to learn the technicalities of digital image processing, then Darktable is likely the better option. Conversely, if you’re a professional photographer rushing to meet deadlines, or someone who wants a snappy editing software to quickly touch up an image, Lightroom may be more suitable for you. That’s not to say you can’t achieve the same speed and proficiency in Darktable; it may just take a little longer to get there. And you can't beat Darktable's zero-dollar price tag.

Lightroom is an excellent starting point, especially for beginner photographers learning composition and color theory alongside digital tools. Lightroom is capable of making any image look great. If, after a while, you feel like Lightroom is too limiting no matter how many plugins you install, then Darktable can be the natural next step.

• Adobe Lightroom

  Adobe Lightroom is the industry standard software for digital photography editing. Its clean, intuitive interface and tools, along with robust file management and a plethora of plug-ins are popular among professional and amateur photographers alike.

  $12 at Adobe

• Darktable

  Darktable is an open-source digital photo editing software. Designed for the pros, its tools offer greater customization to control over every aspect of the editing process. It has a steeper learning curve, but its flexibility can be useful for those looking to nail the perfect look in their photos. Also, it's free!

  See at Darktable