Hi Laci, welcome to the forum and to darktable. I personally never want to just replicate the JPG when processing the RAW files. They are the manufacturer’s version of the image and are not necessarily right or wrong. But I understand they are are good starting point. Darktable by default uses the filmic module which tends to makes color dull even when they are the correct white balance. Another module used by default is color calibration module which can produce a different white balance to the cameras as its starting point.
My personal way of getting more pleasing results from the start, but not trying to match the JPG, is to in the processing preferences change the auto-apply pixel workflow defaults to sigmoid.
The second thing I do is change the color calibration module’s illuminant to as shot in camera.
If you try this I suspect you will be happier with the DT starting points.
BTW, DT is a great program and what I really love about it is the drawn and parametric masking capabilities. It is my #1 editing program for photos. There is another free program called Rawtherapee that when it opens an image it uses the embedded jpg to try and match the image as a starting point. While it is a great program and gives a good starting point close to the jpg it doesn’t match DT for masking. No program I am aware of matches DT for masking and that is the selling point that attracted me to DT over the other free and paid options.
Learning how to create styles and applying a style at the start of processing can be a huge time saver. I apply WB as shot in camera, exposure as shot in camera, denoised (profiled) and diffuse or sharpens preset for sharpen demosaicing. I have a fast computer, but if you have a slow computer you may prefer to denoise and sharpen at the end of the processing.
Good luck.