head to head · open source
Darktable vs lightcraft
Darktable has 13,273 GitHub stars, 1,469 forks, 678 open issues and last shipped today. lightcraft has 12,100 stars, 4,402 forks, 347 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Darktable leads on adoption by 10% (13,273 vs 12,100 stars). Darktable is written in C under GPL-3.0; lightcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Darktable has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, lightcraft 36%. Darktable 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
| Darktable | lightcraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 4.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Darktable if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lightcraft if
- You want the lightcraft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lightcraft fits your workflow better
About Darktable
Darktable is an open source photography workflow application and non destructive raw developer. It acts as a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers, and it lives in the open source photography ecosystem as a C project licensed under the GPL 3.0. It manages digital negatives in a database, lets a user view them through a zoomable lighttable, and supports raw development, enhancement, and export to local or remote storage.
read the full Darktable overview →
About lightcraft
LightCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Lightroom written in pure Rust, aimed at photographers who want a native, non destructive photo library and raw editor on their own machine.
read the full lightcraft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Darktable or lightcraft more popular?
Darktable has 13,273 GitHub stars and lightcraft has 12,100. Darktable has the larger community by that measure.
Are Darktable and lightcraft free?
Both are open source. Darktable is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lightcraft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Darktable and lightcraft?
Darktable is written in C and lightcraft in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Darktable or lightcraft?
Choose Darktable if you want the larger community (13,273 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose lightcraft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.