Darktable: Crashing into the wall in slow-motion
A critical blog post about the open‑source photo editor Darktable has reignited long‑standing frustrations with its usability, defaults, performance, and internal code quality, and highlighted why some photographers have turned to commercial tools like Lightroom, Capture One, or Affinity despite disliking subscriptions. Commenters debate whether Darktable’s increasingly complex, highly flexible pipeline is a strength for technically inclined users or a failure of product leadership that overwhelms newcomers and fractures workflows. The new fork Ansel, led by a former Darktable contributor, is seen by some as a promising, more opinionated alternative, while others view it as risky given its one‑person governance, abrasive rhetoric, and uncertain long‑term sustainability.
Overall sentiment on Darktable
- Opinions are highly polarized.
- Supporters describe it as powerful, fun, improving over time, and well-documented, especially suited to technically inclined users.
- Critics report poor performance, laggy UI, baffling defaults, and basic features (e.g., masking, zoom/export consistency) that feel unreliable, leading many back to Lightroom or other commercial tools.
- Several users specifically complain that RAWs open looking “wrong” or washed out compared to in‑camera JPEGs, and that reaching a “normal” look requires deep color-science knowledge.
Fork, rant, and project politics
- Some are excited that a highly competent, opinionated developer has forked Darktable and might impose clearer design and better defaults.
- Others are put off by the fork author’s aggressive, contemptuous tone and history of abrasive communication, seeing the blog as a toxic feud against volunteers.
- There is disagreement on whether the criticisms are fundamentally right: some say the code examples and architecture issues are truly bad; others say flaws are real but overstated and similar to many large codebases.
UX, defaults, and target audience
- Strong support for opinionated design, fixed or “correct” module order, and good presets to avoid overwhelming users.
- Counterpoint: Darktable’s flexibility (reorderable modules, multiple workflows) is valuable for advanced users, and recent versions have improved defaults and usability.
- Some note that the fork author’s own modules historically had poor defaults, which weakens their authority on usability.
Project structure and leadership
- Debate over “one brilliant dictator” vs community-led development.
- Examples like Blender and the Linux kernel are cited as community projects with strong, long-term leadership.
- Concern that hostile gatekeeping discourages contributors and increases bus factor, but also that “design by committee” creates chaotic feature grab-bags.
Licensing models and subscriptions
- Several participants refuse SaaS-style “subscriptionware,” viewing it as rent-seeking and psychologically manipulative, and resent remote disabling of paid software.
- Others argue subscriptions are often necessary to fund ongoing development and aren’t inherently a dark pattern.
Alternatives and migration
- Alternatives mentioned: RawTherapee and ART, LightZone, Affinity Photo, On1, Capture One, DxO, Resolve, Lightroom (desktop/mobile), vkdt, and legacy Aperture.
- Many end up paying for commercial tools despite preferring FOSS or one-time purchases.
- Migrating large Lightroom catalogs is seen as hard; one commenter shares a tool to extract XMP sidecars.