I am slowly migrating from Lightroom to fully free myself from dual-booting OS. After about a couple of days spent on each software, I have gotten pretty used to them - but would rather want to focus on one as I move on.
Haven’t been able to find something very throughout, even after reddit/google/pixls so I guess I can create this thread to maybe help others (…?!)
Which are the advantages/disadvantages between them, in terms of batch sizes and the technicality?
Well I have not tried RawTherappee so far.
I do quite a lot of local edits via masks in darktable, which are not avaliable in RT. OpenCl support speeds up darktable vastly, if a proper GPU is installed. The new RT version has Pixelshift support for Pentax, but I haven’t tried it so far.
So only from this small feature list point of view, this programs are quiet different. And there are much more differences in detail.
technicality? No idea on that.
I think it depends more on the features you need and work flow than on technicality.
Protip: it’s darktable. At most, Darktable. Any other spelling is not correct 
I’ve often thought that darktable is developed late at night in a garret by romantic artists smoking Gaulois cigarettes and RawTherapee is written by a highly efficient team of scientists in white coats in their laboratorys
What makes you think that? 
RawTherapee has:
darktable has:
It’d help if you described your workflow, what other tools you use, and what features you’re looking for. You can’t go wrong with either one, but it is just down to personal preference.
ditto.
I assumed that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. After all, who owns a garret these days?
Shameless rant:
dt’s exposure Mode=automatic, which is ported from Magic Lantern’s deflick.mo is somewhat powerful, or we are talking about different things when talking about “auto exposure”.
Equalizer.
Plus, nowadays we have local laplacians, e.g. look at exposure fusion in basecurve, and local laplacian filter in local contrast module.
On the other hand, highlight reconstruction is better in rawtherapee, because there is no highlight inpainting in darktable. I keep meaning to write it, but…
darktable’s exposure module is nowhere close to RawTherapee’s. If all I do is open an image and set the exposure module to ‘auto’ in both programs, I like the result better in RawTherapee much more than darktable. That’s not meant as a knock on darktable, but to say that RawTherapee has done an excellent job. I believe the scope of the tools are different, e.g. darktable has separate tools for black/white point and modules for a few other sliders present in RT’s exposure module.
I don’t disagree at all with anything you’ve said, I just wanted to highlight what stood out from each application as someone who uses both programs regularly… This probably means I’m master of neither. 
@haqthinh I have bounced between applications but since I primarily use Windows I tend to use RT more often. I suggest that you try to use both for a short while. Then observe which one you tend to open more often. Most likely what fits your groove is the correct choice. Once you figure that out, you can then aim for depth and complexity.
I assumed so too… I was just hoping to get a bit more context to fully appreciate the humour 
@paperdigits what are the reasons why you need to use both regularly? Are you like the hackerman who develops both? 
I use both. The main draw of Rawtherapee for me is Pentax pixelshift, simpler exposure tweaking, better highlight recovery and faster GUI zooming etc.
Darktable is better when dealing with lots of photos. Filter by tag across all my photos, nicer metadata UI. I get way better results with DT equalizer than RT wavelets. I also achieve better noise reduction and sharpening with DT. Darktable has perspective autocorrect which works, saves me a lot of time. The masking drawn and parametric is useful to.
I photograph mainly buildings and spaces and my family.
I am certainly not developing on either, I don’t possess those skills.
When I want to work on one image only, I generally use darktable.
When I have a batch of images, from a family event or part of what have you, I tend to use RawTherapee.
With the caviot that if I’m not happy with the results I’m getting in one application, then I pop into the other.
I also use both so I can be reasonably familiar with both, so I can help people here and elsewhere, so hopefully people find that of use.
I know it’s not the main comparson but how does photoflow compare to both? I just ask, even though it’s a young program, since it seems to take the best from both and possibly relevant in this thread. Also I have limited experience with any if these, so I’d be interested in opinions whether photoflow is the replacement, now or in the future, for both of these programs? Is these anything major that it’s missing?
Photoflow certainly looks promising, but it is still very young. The main advantage of photo flow is the non-destrucitve layers approach and non fixed asset pipeline. It is very powerful but currently lacks a lot of the tools RT and dt currently have.
For me, I prefer RT for how easily and precisely you can use curves and for the wider range of modules available. BUT, I’m totally in love with the availability of masks and the possibility of having multiple instances of the same module in Darktable. To the point that I’m almost exclusively using Datktable now - although I do miss RT’s lovely curves! 
If all I do is open an image and set the exposure module to ‘auto’ in both programs, I like the result better in darktable much more than RawTherapee. On Linux, recent builds of both. Auto exposure in RT produces flat, lifeless and bloodless pictures, at least with a Nikon. One time (two, three…) out of hundred RT gives a good result with auto settings. So use that with care and always compare the results of RT with the camera generated jpg. The last one is often much better and more pleasing to the eye.
I’ve never shot a jpg on my D750 
All of the things I’ve said in this thread are my own preferences and should be taken as such.
My snapshot camera, a YI M1, also shoots DNGs and I only batch process those, and I like the results from RT a lot more with auto settings. I tend to shoot a of things that lack good contrast, so maybe that’s it. There are probably too many variables to say for sure 