head to head · open source
palmier-pro vs lightcraft
palmier-pro has 14,570 GitHub stars, 1,139 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. lightcraft has 12,100 stars, 4,402 forks, 347 open issues and last shipped yesterday. palmier-pro leads on adoption by 20% (14,570 vs 12,100 stars). palmier-pro is written in Swift under GPL-3.0; lightcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. palmier-pro has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, lightcraft 36%. lightcraft 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
| palmier-pro | lightcraft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Swift | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 4.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick palmier-pro if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- 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 palmier-pro
Palmier Pro is a Swift native macOS video editor with built in generative AI and a Model Context Protocol server, aimed at Apple Silicon editors who want agents such as Claude, Codex, or Cursor to create and edit directly on the timeline.
read the full palmier-pro 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 palmier-pro or lightcraft more popular?
palmier-pro has 14,570 GitHub stars and lightcraft has 12,100. palmier-pro has the larger community by that measure.
Are palmier-pro and lightcraft free?
Both are open source. palmier-pro is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lightcraft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between palmier-pro and lightcraft?
palmier-pro is written in Swift 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, palmier-pro or lightcraft?
Choose palmier-pro if you want the larger community (14,570 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.