head to head · open source
Audacity vs RawTherapee
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars, 2,712 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. RawTherapee has 4,265 stars, 428 forks, 1,028 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Audacity leads on adoption by 344% (18,928 vs 4,265 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; RawTherapee is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, RawTherapee 10%. Audacity was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Audacity | RawTherapee | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 428 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick RawTherapee if
- You want the RawTherapee feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and RawTherapee fits your workflow better
About Audacity
Audacity Audacity is an easy to use, multi track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. More info can be found on This repository is currently undergoing major structural change. We're currently working on Audacity 4, which means an entirely new UI and also refactorings aplenty. As such, the master branch is currently not particularly friendly to new contributors. It is still possible to submit patches to Audacity 3.x; make sure you branch off audacity3 if you choose to do so. Build instructions for 3.x can be found here; build instructions for Audacity 4 can be…
read the full Audacity overview →
About RawTherapee
RawTherapee is a powerful, cross platform raw photo processing program, released as libre software under the GNU General Public License Version 3. It is written mostly in C++ using a GTK+ front end. It uses a patched version of dcraw for reading raw files, with an in house solution which adds the highest quality support for certain camera models unsupported by dcraw and enhances the accuracy of certain raw files already supported by dcraw. It is notable for the advanced control it gives the user over the demosaicing and development process. Target Audience RawTherapee is designed for developing raw files from a…
read the full RawTherapee overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or RawTherapee more popular?
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars and RawTherapee has 4,265. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and RawTherapee free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and RawTherapee is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and RawTherapee?
Audacity is written in C++ and RawTherapee in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Audacity or RawTherapee?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,928 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose RawTherapee if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.