Best FOSS alternative to Lightroom?

Maybe Darktable? https://www.darktable.org

Darktable!

I started a community for it at [email protected]

There’s also Rawtherapee.

Darktable or RawTherapee

A desktop application that does a great job as a non-destructive photo editor is found easily in darktable (and others). A mobile application that does a great job as a non-destructive photo editor is found easily in other apps. Unfortunately, they are not the same app/ecosystem.

Lightroom's secret sauce is that they have the same app (or rather ecosystem) that handles both cases. You can take pics on mobile, edit them on mobile or desktop seamlessly. And you can import on desktop and edit on mobile. All originals go to desktop (LR Classic) for safe backup (using your own system/storage). I can peruse/edit/maintain my catalog/albums from any device (ie via smartphone if I'm waiting for my kids away from home...)

It is for this reason that I pay Adobe. Grudgingly.

I don't care about the AI/fancy editing stuff Adobe has - it's a distraction from the real requirement (well, for me, at least!)

I have never come across a Linux-capable (let alone FOSS) setup that can do this. Personally I think it's very unlikely to ever happen as a FOSS setup as this requires an enterprise level design that, frankly, requires money to be done reliably. (I'm not knocking the amazing past, present and future accomplishments in FOSS-land - this just needs an approach that does not typically lend itself to FOSS).

I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

I'd gladly pay for an full solution based in Linux that can do what Adobe can do here. But it doesn't seem to exist.

In the meantime, I keep kicking the darktable tires to see if there's a path forward for me.

I've been using Rawtherapee, just make sure you are using the latest version (5.9) since it added a bunch of functionality.