I have told my experience before here on the forum, but here I go again.
I have been using this kind of application (I believe they’re called DAM? Digital Assets Management) since Apple’s Aperture: anybody remembers it? It was great; I can’t comment on the quality of the processing algorithms but I particulary liked the seamless transition between the organization/library management tools and processing tools. LR introduced the module structure (Library and Develop) which is also present in darktable (lightable & darkroom) and that adds friction to the user experience in my view. Anyway, years have passed, it seems to be the standard way to do things and I’ve adapted to this.
After Apple killed Aperture, I moved to LR, and that was painful: how to manage the transition, decide on the final version of the photos to be moved as jpg, learn the new tools etc. Back then I told myself: this is so much work, let me decide what is the best future-proof solution; well Adobe looks like a robust company, I’ll trust them with my money. That must have been around 2015 I think.
Many many RAWs have been added to my LR library until Adobe decided to change its business model, and slowly killed the standalone (“classic”) LR. Guess how happy I was at the idea of finding another solution to manage my incomparably larger library, carefully tagged and organized over the years.
But in 2018 I was also fed up with Apple’s ecosystem so I took that opportunity to test Linux and darktable (I was following dt’s progress since version 1.x but never used because it wasn’t very nice – at least on Mac OS). I bought a second-hand thinkpad where I installed Linux and darktable and started to see how to process images and move my library preserving tags etc.
Here we are in 2021 and I am very happy with all the progress that dt has made and how it allows me to manage and edit my photos. Most importantly, I am confident that I will never have to move to another system, and no corporation will decide on the fate of my photos. Talking about client support – there was NONE coming from Adobe or Apple!
Apologies if this is long and perhaps not to the point. I wanted to make it clear however that I have only directly compared dt and LR for a short period in 2018, when I was an advanced user of LR and a beginner with dt.
I agree with some of the earlier comments about LR workflow to be overall “faster” than dt. Not because you can’t be fast with dt – I certainly am now – but dt gives you different possibilities to do certain things and most of its modules offer so many options and variables that is surely overwhelming for beginner-to-intermediate users. And that will make you slower, until you gain a certain experience.
Also back when I was comparing dt and LR on the macbook pro I had at the time, I vividly remember the shock at seeing how fast and reactive was LR compared to dt (immediate visual feedback when modifying exposure, curves etc). But it was dt 2.x and no gpu, so this could be different now. Right now, on my new pumped-up laptop, darktable is very fast; but I haven’t tried LR on the same machine so I’m unable to make a comparison.
About printing, it’s true that LR was more refined plus lots of support from paper manufacturers with dedicated profiles, but I have found a good balance and good results using TurboPrint to drive my Canon Pro-100 (I use Canon and Red River Paper).
I don’t care about presets and the too many educational videos on LR; the ones we have for dt are very often much more precise and technical, and I prefer quality over quantity.
About the future of dt vs LR, how AI techniques will play a major role in LR etc, seeing first hand how over-hyped this term is in my industry (geosciences) I don’t care one bit if LR will have major AI-driven tools (automatic replacement of dull skies? I’d rather go out and have another go at shooting in different conditions).
In conclusion, I have never regretted the decision to move to dt. I will never go back to a commercial software not because of money (which less informed people think is the main reason why you would use open source applications) but because dt gives me everything I need to manage and process my photos, and I have incredible technical support (=this forum!, plus the invaluable opportunity to talk directly to the developers). And what I said above, peace of mind for the future of my photos.