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Adobe Lightroom vs darktable

Lightroom is a subscription with cloud storage and mobile apps; darktable is free and open source and runs on Linux as well as Windows and macOS.

Pick Adobe Lightroom if…

Pick Lightroom if you want one subscription that covers editing on desktop, phone and web, with cloud storage included.

Pick darktable if…

Pick darktable if you want free, open-source raw editing, or you use Linux.

Price

  • Paid
  • Free
  • Open source

Starting price

US$11.99/mo (Annual, billed monthly)
—

Free plan

No
Yes

Open source

No
Yes

Works on

Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
Windows, macOS, Linux
Try Adobe Lightroom (opens the Adobe Lightroom website in a new tab)Try darktable (opens the darktable website in a new tab)

Lightroom is Adobe's cloud-based photo service. The Lightroom plan starts at US$11.99 per month on the 'Annual, billed monthly' plan and includes 1TB of cloud storage. Adobe offers a 7-day free trial, but there is no permanent free plan for the desktop app.

darktable is free and open source (GPL-3.0). It is a photo workflow app and raw developer with non-destructive editing, and it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Lightroom has apps for desktop, iOS and Android, plus a web version, and Adobe lists AI tools such as object removal, masking and Assisted Culling. The pages we checked list no Linux version of Lightroom. If you want your photos and edits available on several devices through one account, that is what the subscription pays for.

If you work on Windows or macOS and are fine without cloud sync, darktable costs nothing and is worth a trial run on a few of your own raw files. If you want a tool that is supported by a company and synced across devices, Lightroom is the one to look at.

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Last updated 16 October 2026. How we make money