Tools for
Conviviality

Home / Design & creative tools / darktable

darktable

A non-destructive RAW photo editor and library for photographers.

Instead of Adobe Lightroom

M · ToolOpen sourceFreeNo accountWorks offline
www.darktable.org
Screenshot of the darktable website

Screenshot from www.darktable.org, taken 2026-10-23, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

darktable is an open-source photography workflow application and RAW developer, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. Its editing is fully non-destructive, working on cached buffers for display and only converting the full image on export, so your originals stay as they were.

It is the closest open-source counterpart to Lightroom, and it keeps your library on your own computer with no account or cloud required. The interface is dense and takes time to learn, and the project does not publish much about how it is funded.

    What stands out

  • Non-destructive RAW editing, so your originals stay as they were
  • Keeps your library on your own computer, with no account or cloud
  • The closest open-source counterpart to Lightroom
Visit darktable
Do you make darktable? Get the badge for your site

This badge reports a dated review. It is not a certification and it costs nothing. Link it to this page and leave the numbers alone: the image always shows the current score.

For dark backgrounds, use darktable-dark.svg in place of darktable-light.svg.

For comparison, we also reviewed Adobe Creative Cloud (12/30) as a benchmark.

Other tools for “draw, design and edit”