head to head · open source
Darktable vs RawTherapee
Darktable has 13,383 GitHub stars, 1,506 forks, 678 open issues and last shipped yesterday. RawTherapee has 4,265 stars, 428 forks, 1,028 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Darktable leads on adoption by 214% (13,383 vs 4,265 stars). Darktable is written in C under GPL-3.0; RawTherapee is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Darktable has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, RawTherapee 10%. 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 | RawTherapee | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 428 |
| 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 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 Darktable
darktable ========= darktable is an open source photography workflow application and non destructive raw developer a virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images, enhance them and export them to local or remote storage. darktable is not a free Adobe® Lightroom® replacement. Table of Contents 1. Documentation 2. Website 3. Requirements Supported platforms Hardware AI features (optional) 4. Installing Latest release Development snapshot 5. Updating from older versions 6…
read the full Darktable 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 Darktable or RawTherapee more popular?
Darktable has 13,383 GitHub stars and RawTherapee has 4,265. Darktable has the larger community by that measure.
Are Darktable and RawTherapee free?
Both are open source. Darktable is licensed under GPL-3.0 and RawTherapee under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Darktable and RawTherapee?
Darktable 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, Darktable or RawTherapee?
Choose Darktable if you want the larger community (13,383 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose RawTherapee if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.