12 Best Adobe Lightroom Alternatives in 2026 [User Tested]

Whether you’re looking for your first photo-organizing and editing software or you’re a long-time Lightroom user considering a change, I’ve rigorously tested these Lightroom alternatives so you don’t have to.

Depending on your needs, alternative photo editing software may offer file management (DAM) features and RAW image editing tools similar to Lightroom.

Some tools are desktop-only, while others are online or app-based – perfect if you’re looking for an alternative to the Lightroom Mobile app.

Note that we’ve updated this guide for 2026, and all software comparisons below reflect the latest available versions and current pricing at the time of writing.

Free Lightroom alternatives also exist, and most of the paid software offers a free trial so you can experiment before you buy.

Adobe lost many users when it removed the option to buy Lightroom outright, and the recent increase in subscription prices triggered another wave of departures.

Now’s your chance to choose an alternative image editing program that’s right for you. When I tested the latest versions of each software, I was surprised by just how far the features have come.

And the good news is that there are even free options that compare to Lightroom.

So, whether you’re after more affordable alternatives to Lightroom or are ready to invest in more comprehensive software, this guide is for you.

What is the Best Alternative to Lightroom?

Image	Product	Features
	Skylum Luminar Neo#1 LIGHTROOM ALTERNATIVE	Great Value for Money Super Fast Fun to Use Complex Edits made Easy	Our Rating: 5/5	Our Rating: 5/5 VIEW PRICE →
	On1 Photo RAWHIGHLY RECOMMENDED	Easy to Use All Skill Levels Great Value for Money Incredibly Flexible System	Our Rating: 4/5	Our Rating: 4/5 VIEW PRICE →
	Mylio PhotosBEST DAM FOR ORGANISING PHOTOS	Slick Interface Easy & Fun to Use Completely Private (offline) Unifies Photo Libraries	Our Rating: 4/5	Our Rating: 4/5 VIEW PRICE →
	DxO PhotoLabBEST FOR ADVANCED EDITING	Quick Processing Superior Noise Reduction Haze Remover Clear Interface	Our Rating: 4/5	Our Rating: 4/5 VIEW PRICE →
	Capture OneBEST FOR PROFESSIONALS	Feature Rich Interface Customizability Excellent Raw File Conversion Tethering Abilities	Our Rating: 5/5	Our Rating: 5/5 VIEW PRICE →
	DarktableFREE ALTERNATIVE	Excellent Performance User-friendly Design Robust Powerful and Comprehensive	Our Rating: 3/5	Our Rating: 3/5 VIEW PRICE →
	Affinity PhotoLAYER EDITING	Affordable Raw Editing Flawless Retouching Live Filter Layers	Our Rating: 4/5	Our Rating: 4/5 VIEW PRICE →
	Photoshop ExpressLIGHTROOM CC ALTERNATIVE	Edit on the Go Mobile Easy Edits Easy for Beginners	Our Rating: 3/5	Our Rating: 3/5 VIEW PRICE →
	PolarrONLINE ALTERNATIVE	Fast Powerful Portrait Enhancers Entirely Online Slick User Interface	Our Rating: 3/5	Our Rating: 3/5 VIEW PRICE →

1. Skylum Luminar Neo (Most Popular Lightroom Alternative)

Luminar Neo was my number one recommendation as a Lightroom alternative on the original version of this list, and there’s still no other software that has stolen its place.

It offers raw image processing and several mind-blowing AI-powered photo editing tools, and they’ve recently added an AI assistant as well.

The photo management library offers an excellent smart search and rating options. However, it lacks some advanced features such as face recognition. Most photographers will find Luminar’s folders and collections enough to keep images organized, though.

Those who have little interest in spending hours on complex edits in Lightroom or Photoshop will love the latest Luminar update.

Complex editing tasks which would normally take experienced retoucher hours in Photoshop can be performed in just one click with Luminar Neo by a complete beginner. Thankfully, it’s also a refreshingly affordable image editing software.

Replacing the sky, changing facial features or body shapes, removing powerlines and dust spots, adding sun rays that wrap around foreground objects – all this can be achieved in seconds with zero prior editing experience.

In its latest update, Luminar replaced Relight AI with the new and improved Light Depth, which is an amazing way to add volume to your images in seconds.

Even the latest version of Adobe Lightroom, which includes Generative Remove, offers fewer AI tools than Luminar Neo.

Much of the excitement surrounding Luminar has centred on its AI photo editing features. However, Luminar is actually a competent non-destructive RAW photo editor, too, offering all the main tools required to produce polished, professional-quality images.

It also offers the option to work in layers, which in the Adobe suite is only available in Photoshop.

Luminar is particularly great for beginners or those not coming from Lightroom. All the features are user-friendly and simple to use, with virtually no learning curve. The addition of the AI assistant has elevated Luminar into a great learning tool as well.

This doesn’t mean that it’s not professional software. Advanced users can also benefit from time-saving workflows offered by the AI tools and the customization each feature provides.

Existing Lightroom users will appreciate the similarity in tool layout, shortcut keys and slider-based image adjustments: all the basic tools that exist in Lightroom’s Develop module are also present in Luminar, including more advanced features like Curves and LUT Mapping.

As soon as you import a photo into Luminar, artificial intelligence analyzes its content to provide recommended overall edits in the form of unique presets for each photo. You can also use the Enhance AI feature or ask the AI assistant to enhance your picture.

Each one of these solutions can be a final result or a strong starting point – how deep you want to go into your editing is your choice. Luminar Neo supports both quick fixes and complex edits.

You can find some useful post-processing tools in Neo that aren’t available in Lightroom, such as Focus Stacking, HDR, and Panorama Stitching.

It also includes generative AI tools to extend the background and replace or remove objects from your pictures. Restoring old images is another task that’s become a breeze thanks to Luminar Neo’s recent updates.

Another advantage over Lightroom is that Luminar’s image library is much easier to navigate. If you use macOS Finder or Windows Explorer to organize your folders, you already know how to use Luminar’s catalog.

Overall, Luminar Neo is much faster than Lightroom at importing RAW images. As it’s simply referencing files on your hard drive, there’s no long import sequence – your images just appear in Luminar immediately.

In my tests, I used a 2021 MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM, and Luminar Neo ran flawlessly, although there is a split-second delay when processing complex AI edits for the first time.

Luminar also runs natively on the Mac M1 chip, meaning your MacBook battery will be spared even when running processor-intensive tasks.

That said, Lightroom is still quicker at performing batch edits of multiple large RAW files. Performance depends on your computer hardware and the size of your original files, but Luminar isn’t a viable alternative to Lightroom for wedding photographers or anyone needing to edit thousands of RAWs quickly.

Overall, Luminar surpasses all the other Lightroom alternatives due to its simplicity, excellent core editing tools, powerful one-click AI features, and affordable one-time pricing.

So, is Luminar Neo better than Lightroom? For certain complex editing tasks, yes; for image management, no. However, you can use it as a plugin alongside Lightroom, and you get the best of both worlds.

Luminar Neo is very affordable and can be purchased outright (no subscription). However, you’ll have to buy upgrades in the future, not just to get the new features, but also to renew access to its generative AI tools.

Luminar is available for Mac and Windows and offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can decide if it’s the right Lightroom substitute for you.

Resources

• Luminar vs Lightroom
• System requirements
• Luminar discount

2. ON1 Photo RAW (Great all-in-one Lightroom Alternative)

 

ON1 Photo RAW is another of our favourite Lightroom alternatives, as you can see from our ON1 review of the 2023 version. Since then, they’ve continued to wow us with each upgrade.

Unlike most of the other Lightroom competitors, it combines an image organizer, RAW file processor, layered editor, and effects app all in one – it’s actually like having both Lightroom and Photoshop under one roof.

The user interface isn’t as simple or streamlined as Luminar, and there’s definitely a higher learning curve, but ON1 offers a number of features that advanced users might appreciate.

The first is the excellent photo management and library system. Unlike Luminar or Lightroom, you don’t have to import your images into a software’s catalog – you handle everything on your own drive.

You can locate your images by searching for keywords, metadata, dates, and even the time the image was taken.

There’s also an AI keyword feature to make things even more efficient. This is crucial to those of us who depend on metadata to find and manage our photos. You can also create custom camera profiles with the X-Rite Camera Profiler.

You won’t have the options for backups or the overall flexibility of Lightroom’s catalog system, but that’s to be expected in a database-style image editing software.

And, if you’re an existing Lightroom user, you can easily switch to ON1Photo Raw with its migration assistant.

The develop module is structured much like Adobe Lightroom and is a bit more complex for those new to image editing. That being said, ON1 has all the photo adjustments you would expect from a Lightroom replacement.

This includes various AI features such as NoNoise AI, Generative Erase, or Resize AI. AI Quick Mask is another impressive tool that saves you hours when making multiple selections. It also has some features that Lightroom doesn’t, such as a Sky Swap tool or Portrait AI.

One handy tool that’s unique to ON1 is AI Match, which takes any custom settings you use in-camera and matches them with a RAW conversion rendered by the software. This is especially useful if you shoot in black and white or use custom film looks, as is common with Fuji cameras.

ON1’s Effects module includes a couple of proprietary filters, including ‘Weather’, which even lets you add rain or snow to an image.

Many of today’s Lightroom alternatives come with layer functionality, and ON1 is no exception. These work much the same as Photoshop and inPixio, with masks, blend modes, and an easy way to merge layers.

ON1 also has HDR, Panorama, and Focus Stacking options. These options are only available in Adobe when using Lightroom and Photoshop in tandem.

As far as portrait editing is concerned, ON1 has long been at the top of the field for its price point. Portrait AI automatically finds faces and creates a separate mask/adjustment panel for each one – from there, you can adjust the skin, eyes, and mouth individually.

Speaking of faces, ON1 also has a great Face Recovery feature when you’re resizing low-resolution photos.

ON1 also offers several excellent built-in presets, over 100 new looks, backgrounds, textures, and skies – though the sky replacement feature isn’t quite as accurate as Luminar’s.

Unlike Luminar, ON1 Photo RAW has a print module that adds some serious functionality to the app. It comes with a number of templates, including various options for individual prints, contact sheets, and tiled package prints. It also lets you add watermarks before you print.

While ON1 Photo RAW is a complete software that you can use as a standalone app, you can also use it as a plug-in for some of the most popular editors on the market – including Lightroom. For this, you need the ON1 Photo RAW MAX.

For mobile editing, you have ON1 Photo RAW for mobile, which is a free app available for iOS and Android. If you have ON1 Photo RAW MAX, you’ll have 200 GB cloud sync for cross-device editing.

Aside from the slightly complicated user interface, the only other small downside that I found while testing Photo RAW is the sluggishness in performance of some of the processor-intensive AI tools – a pop-up loading dialogue is a common sight.

All in all, ON1 Photo RAW is the only real ‘one-stop-shop’ photo editor available right now. Just about everything most photographers would ever need is here in one place.

It’s faster than Lightroom, offers more search power than Luminar, does photo merging, has print options, and even allows for text to be added.

Best of all is the price of ON1. It offers great value for money… especially when compared to a Lightroom subscription.

Resources

• System requirements
• What’s New: Latest version

3. Mylio Photos (Best Lightroom Alternative for Organising Photos: DAM)

Lightroom is mainly used for two things: photo organizing and photo editing. The previous alternatives I proposed also cover these tasks. Mylio Photos, instead, focuses solely on photo organizing.

So, it’s not exactly a Lightroom equivalent, per se. However, some users may be interested only in photo management with basic editing tools. If this is you, then Mylio Photos might be the best Lightroom replacement you can find.

Mylio Photos uses local media storage and device-to-device syncing to let you connect multiple image libraries and access them in one location – all without the Internet or the Cloud.

This means it’s entirely private – a huge benefit for any photographer who feels uncomfortable about storing and sharing personal images online. In this day and age of hackers and online piracy, that’s very reassuring.

You choose to ‘share’ any photos or videos across your devices (or those of your family) via your own secure WiFi connection. As long as the devices are connected and active on the same WiFi network, the apps will sync your chosen videos and photos.

Mylio also helps you find images faster with smart organization and search features, and offers handy image editing tools.

Since it’s a product primarily designed for individuals and families, its features aren’t suited to complex edits. However, you’ll find all the basic tools – enough for a large base of users.

It even goes beyond the basic entry-level by allowing non-destructive RAW image processing on any device. The mobile app is fast and responsive since all images are reduced, much like a Lightroom Smart Preview.

(You’re even able to transfer the full-resolution image from your ‘Vault’ to any of your devices if you need it.)

A key benefit of Mylio Photos is that it can be used across different platforms, meaning if your laptop is a Mac but your phone is an Android and your tablet runs Windows, you can still use it. This makes it great for families and small businesses where people are using a mix of products and platforms.

You can store and organize an unlimited number of photos and videos – the only limitation is the capacity of your devices. To optimize storage, photos are optimized to approximately 5% of their original size.

The user interface is well laid out and easy to understand, making it great software for beginners or anyone who just wants a simple way to organize and edit photos.

Unfortunately, you can’t buy it outright, but there is a free trial to see if you like it. After the trial ends, you have different subscription programs based on how many users you want to include.

For anyone who values privacy above all else, Mylio is a great solution. The fact that it’s so good at managing multiple libraries of images is just a bonus.

Resources

• User manual

4. DxO PhotoLab (Great for RAW Processing)

DxO PhotoLab is an image editing app that some photographers prefer to Lightroom for its powerful RAW processing engine and lab-grade corrections.

DxO has multiple products, but the one you’re looking for as a substitute for Lightroom is DxO PhotoLab, a robust photo manager with powerful editing features.

PhotoLab is best known for its impressive RAW processing tools, which automatically apply lens corrections and all the default processing adjustments when you start browsing a folder of RAW files.

A handy feature is that DxO can automatically look up any missing camera and lens correction profiles required for the best RAW processing. However, most of these are already included in the software.

The user interface is similar to Lightroom and can be further customized to mimic it. All the basic editing functionality is there, with more advanced editing tools ready for you to take full manual control.

Shotkit did a full review on DxO PhotoLab 3. We already liked it back then, but now… well, we love it!

 

Smart Lighting is a DxO-exclusive feature that applies highlight and shadow adjustments to a RAW file to produce a more balanced image with increased dynamic range. This is especially useful when applied to a series of images and is a real timesaver for landscape photography.

For editing particular areas of your images, the AI masks are powerful and intuitive. You can select people, animals, backgrounds, and more with just a click, and refine them easily. Of course, you also have traditional masking tools, such as the graduated filter and a manual brush.

Unique to DxO PhotoLab, you can also try your hand at a control line and control point tool to make local selections.

The non-destructive editing is smooth and fast, and the latest versions bring with them a number of useful features, including:

• DeepPrime: AI-powered demosaicing and denoising technology trained with deep learning. DeepPRIME XD2s enhances results further for especially challenging images.
• DxO Modules: The DxO Modules are an exclusive feature that comes from years of laboratory experimentation. They optimize sharpness and optical performance based on your exact camera and lens combination.
• Smart Workspace: A streamlined, customizable interface designed for a more efficient workflow, including batch renaming tools.
• Advanced History: A detailed editing history panel that lets you return to earlier stages of your workflow.
• Selective Copy Paste: Allows you to transfer selected adjustments from one photo to multiple similar images.
• Instant Watermarking: Quickly apply watermarks to your images during export.

You can do many of the same things in DXO PhotoLab as you can in Lightroom with regard to image management and editing individual images, but for any non-destructive layer-based edits, you’ll need to resort to other software such as Photoshop.

While PhotoLab’s Photo Library now includes metadata management — allowing you to modify, categorize, and search images using EXIF and IPTC data, as well as add keywords — DxO still lags behind Lightroom when it comes to large-scale photo organization and asset management.

That said, recent updates have introduced a versatile batch-renaming tool and a stacking feature, which improve workflow efficiency.

For professional photographers or perfectionist pixel peepers who want the best image quality, DxO is hard to beat.

5. Capture One (Lightroom Alternative for Professional Studio Photography)

Capture One is a powerful software reserved more for professional photographers. It’s got a steep learning curve, and it’s geared more towards a tethered shooting/collaborative workflow as used in studios or teams.

Having said that, if you’re a pro who’s looking for something with better imaging capabilities than Lightroom and the other photo editing software available right now, Capture One is the tool to use.

With its latest release, Capture One offers exceptional RAW image file processing, image cataloging, layers, local adjustments, keystone adjustments, and just about all the features one would expect out of a pro image editing app.

If you’re moving from Lightroom, Capture One makes it a simple transition – you’re able to smoothly migrate your existing Lightroom files with an importer tool, and even customize the interface so it mimics Lightroom.

However, despite all the helpful tutorials and documentation, there’s still a steep learning curve to using Capture One proficiently.

Thanks to colour profiles tailored for every camera, any RAW file imported into Capture One will instantly look better than in any other RAW photo editor. With Lightroom, for example, imported files have a more neutral starting point.

Capture One has more ways to manipulate color than Lightroom. Unlike most other editing programs, it doesn’t limit you to the 8-colour HSL panel; the Pick Color tool lets you pick any colour or colour range in the photo.

 

From there, you can adjust the affected colour range, hue, saturation and lightness. The 3-Way option even lets you adjust the colour tint separately in the shadow, mid-tone and highlight areas.

While Capture ONE hasn’t leaned into AI as much as its competitors, it does offer AI-assisted masking and a handy tool to match the style of a reference photo that will save you tons of editing time.

Unlike Lightroom, Capture One doesn’t offer different workspaces for different functions (i.e., library, develop, etc.). Instead, everything sits in one interface, and you toggle through buttons to change functions. This mixed-asset management can be confusing at first.

Fans of Lightroom’s autocorrect features won’t be disappointed, since Capture One offers all of them, and actually improves on their performance.

If you’re a photographer who shoots tethered to a computer, Capture One is faster and much more reliable than Lightroom. This is no surprise since tethered shooting functionality is one of the main reasons the software was developed.

Not just that, but the possibility of having live connections with your clients during the shoot to receive feedback or offline collaborations with your team really sets Capture One apart.

Check out their YouTube video showing how to conduct a live collaboration during a tethered photoshoot to get an idea of what I mean.

Another advantage of Capture One over Lightroom (and some of its alternatives) is that it lets you work with layers.

When you use layers in Capture One, you can make targeted local adjustments to your photos and still use the majority of the editing tools available, not just the ones in a given tool. This is a huge benefit for those who like a fine level of control over photo manipulation.

To use Capture One regularly, you have three options: Pro, All-in-One, and Studio. The best one for you depends on the type of workflow you have. Do you need it on mobile devices? Do you need offline collaboration tools? Carefully review the options and choose the one that best fits your needs.

If you have a plan that supports it, Capture One is also available for Android, iPhone, and iPad.

In summary, if you’re a pro who needs the most accurate editing capabilities, or are lucky enough to own a digital MF camera, Capture One will help you get the most out of every image.

For everyone else and especially beginners, however, it’s overkill.

Resources

• Switching to Capture One from Lightroom

6. Darktable (Best Free Lightroom Alternative)

Darktable makes a point on its website to clarify that it’s not a Lightroom alternative and that the two have little in common. So I apologize to the developers for naming it as such.

However, it is a wonderful free alternative if you need a full-featured non-destructive raw photo editor with photo management features. The main difference lies in the main goal of each software program.

Lightroom aims to reach all users, regardless of their skill level. This means that beginners will have easy access to photo editing with intuitive tools and AI-powered features, while pros can make precision-level adjustments.

On the other hand, Darktable is not focused on the user’s skill level but on the freedom to build a custom workflow. This makes it less friendly for beginners. However, it’s not meant to exclude these users; it simply requires a bit more time to get comfortable with its interface.

Unlike Lightroom and most of its alternatives, Darktable also runs on Linux, making it one of the few truly cross-platform image editors available.

Darktable can import a wide variety of standard, RAW and HDR image formats, including JPEG, CR2, NEF, HDR, PFM, RAF and more. It can’t, however, import edits from other programs.

It also includes RAW processing for over 400 cameras as well as look-up tables (LUTs) and tethered-shooting support – pretty impressive for a 100% free raw editor!

Like Lightroom, the latest version takes advantage of GPU-accelerated image processing, meaning most editing features are surprisingly fast.

As far as the UI is concerned, Darktable looks a lot like Lightroom, but the grouping of the editing modules still takes some time to get used to.

Once you get accustomed to the user interface, you can fully customize Darktable, setting it up for just the editing tools you want to use.

You can set up automatic scripts in Darktable to streamline your workflow and make repetitive tasks faster and more efficient – a unique feature that neither Lightroom nor any of its alternatives offer.

Darktable offers a powerful image export system that supports Piwigo web albums, disk storage, 1:1 copies, and email attachments. It can even generate a simple HTML-based web gallery for simple online album creation.

Darktable also allows you to export to low dynamic range (JPEG, PNG, TIFF), 16-bit (PPM, TIFF), or linear high dynamic range (PFM, EXR) images.

In terms of support, Darktable comes with excellent, multi-lingual documentation – even the app itself is available in 21 languages!

Being open-source, there’s a whole host of user support forums, video tutorials, and instructional posts, too. It’s also continually updated by many talented programmers working to improve it.

Professional photographers might find Darktable’s recovery of shadows and highlights less effective than Lightroom’s, but most users won’t notice much difference.

If you have a library with over 10,000 photos, it’s better to run another image management program alongside this app. (Most open-source folks choose Digikam.)

Overall, Darktable is the most developed of the free, open-source Lightroom alternatives and is well worth trying out.

Resources

• User manual (version 3.8)

7. Raw Therapee (Open-Source Lightroom Alternative)

RawTherapee is a free, cross-platform, open-source RAW image processing app for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s a popular software program for beginners or anyone who doesn’t want to invest in an Adobe Photography Plan to edit their images.

RawTherapee has all the standard editing features needed in a RAW editor and even includes advanced color controls and lens corrections.

Among its strong points are exceptional demosaicing, multiple denoising methods, and batch processing.

The RAW processing in RawTherapee is impressive for a free app, and it has a strong, devoted Fujifilm user following. (Fujifilm RAW files are notoriously challenging to render well.) In fact, many users prefer RawTherapee’s outputs to the other free Lightroom alternatives.

There’s also what seems like an infinite number of fine-tuning options in RawTherapee. This can get in the way if you need to edit quickly (i.e., use a single slider), but if you want full control, it actually has even more options than Lightroom.

RawTherapee is now on version 5.12, which includes a new Dehaze option on the Raw Black Points feature, a de-fish feature in the Distortion Correction, and a Gamut compression tool, among many other new upgrades.

Among the biggest changes is the use of LibRaw. If you tried using RawTherapee in the past and were disappointed because it didn’t support the raw files of your camera, the migration to LibRaw might have fixed this.

In fact, since version 5.11, many more cameras are now supported.

RawTherapee is available in over 15 languages and will soon have more, thanks to a very active community of open-source developers who keep the software up to date with the latest camera and lens profiles.

If you need documentation and tutorials, you’ll find help in their Forum and RawPedia.

You’ll also be encouraged to download the code, modify it and help improve the software. This, of course, requires skills that many of the users don’t have. Not to worry, though, you don’t have to know any coding to be able to install and use RawTherapee as it is.

Unlike Darktable, the other free alternative I included on the list, RawTherapee lacks photo management tools. So, this will only replace the editing part of Lightroom.

With the recent releases providing “hundreds of bug fixes, speed optimizations and raw format support improvements,” RawTherapee remains one of the best free Lightroom alternatives of the year.

Resources

• User manual (version 5.8)
• RawTherapee vs Lightroom

8. Affinity (Free alternative to Lightroom & Photoshop & Illustrator & inDesign)

Once again, this alternative doesn’t fully replace Lightroom because it lacks a digital asset management (DAM) system. On the other hand, Affinity offers some features that aren’t available in Lightroom. Let’s break this down.

Affinity Photo has been a respected alternative for photo editing for years. However, Canva acquired it and last year released it as a whole new, all-encompassing free product.

Now, it’s called just Affinity – no last name. That’s because they took the best out of Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher to create a single product that covers all three functions.

With this move, they didn’t target Lightroom, but Adobe as a whole and came up with an alternative for Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. They didn’t aim to replace an app, but to revolutionize the entire creative workflow.

Now, that wide scope goes beyond the intent of this article, which is simply to say that Affinity is an excellent free alternative to Lightroom for photo editing.

Unlike some of the other software on this list, Affinity takes more after Photoshop than Lightroom. It offers layers, masks, smart objects, colour management, CMYK/RGB editing, and great RAW file conversion.

As far as the learning curve is concerned, much like Lightroom, the tools in Affinity are quite in-depth and will take some time to explore and learn. Luckily the interface is quite logical, and if you’ve used Photoshop before the tools will make sense.

When the new Affinity launched with the bold promise of a unified workspace and free access forever, it created waves across the creative community. As a result, you’ll find plenty of YouTube videos that will make the learning curve much easier to handle.

From focus stacking tools and panorama stitching to HDR merging and digital painting, it has just about everything you could want in an image editing application.

So, if you’re looking for a single piece of photo editing software that can replace the Lightroom/Photoshop subscription, Affinity Photo is one of the best options.

Plus, you can add text to your images, create or add vector illustrations, generate ready-to-print material, and more.

Resources

• Affinity official website

9. Apple Photos (Free Lightroom Alternative for MacOS)

Apple Photos, aka ‘Photos for macOS’, is an often overlooked free Lightroom alternative that comes bundled with every Apple computer.

Over the years, the Photos program has evolved into a fully-fledged non-destructive editing and photo management tool with both basic and advanced features for photographers of all levels.

Photos includes intuitive search options for image management and cataloguing. Smart search tools can help you find images based on a number of criteria; they even analyze videos to find a photogram and can read the text on an image and interact with it.

You can also use its AI for photo curation, selecting only images that fit your description, or even creating a storyline. Your collections, or the entire library, can be shared with up to five people.

As if this wasn’t enough, using the cloud storage to ensure all your photos and videos are kept in sync with your Mac, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and even your PC.

If you’re worried about privacy, you can control which images Photo can access and also set restrictions when sharing them with others.

If you’re already an Apple device owner, using Photos to manage your images is a no-brainer. As with everything in the Apple ecosystem, everything ‘just works’.

Photos even lets you hide duplicate photos and ignore random screenshots and receipts that most people photograph with their iPhones.

Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom CC Mobile app have made it easier and easier to integrate with the photos you already take on your Apple device, but they’ll never be a totally ‘native’ solution like Photos.

Photos uses AI to highlight what it considers to be your ‘best shots’ with a larger preview, and any ‘Live Photos‘ come to life as if you were viewing them on your mobile device – something that Lightroom, nor any of the other Lightroom alternatives, can do.

Another nice touch is ‘Memories’, which finds your best photos and videos and weaves them into a short movie.

On the editing front, there are all the main exposure adjustment tools, as well as a comprehensive set of powerful but easy-to-use tools to transform your photos.

You can do basic and advanced editing thanks to local adjustments. The AI-powered erase tool is one of the most accurate I’ve found in my testing.

Again, as Photos is integrated so tightly with the iOS app, you’re even able to change lighting effects within the Mac program itself, or even the Live Photos into video loops – something no other Lightroom competitor can accomplish, free or paid.

Another thing you can do in Photos, but not in Lightroom, is edit video with the same tools you use to edit images, and you can add captions.

Professional photographers who want advanced tools or image management options may feel Photos falls a bit short, but as one of the truly free Lightroom alternatives, it’s hard to complain.

Resources

• User guide (version macOS Monterey)

10. Photoshop Web (Free CC Alternative to Lightroom)

If you’d like to stay within the Adobe Creative Cloud without requiring expensive subscriptions or heavy software installations, Photoshop Web is a great alternative.

Photoshop Web is accessible by browser, so you can use it on any computer. The availability of its tools is based on three levels: free without an account, free with login, and paid.

As soon as you open Photoshop Web, you can upload a photo and start working on it. Note that raw files aren’t supported for free usage.

Without an account or payment, you can make most of the basic edits to adjust light and color. It’s possible to make local adjustments, but you’ll have limited access to the selection tools, so you might need to spend some time fine-tuning them.

It’s also possible to add text, although text effects are disabled at this point.

You can work non-destructively by using layers and layer masks. I think that’s a pretty great advantage for a software that doesn’t even require a login.

It wouldn’t be uncommon to feel limited at this point. So, you can create an Adobe account or log in to your existing one, and unlock a lot more features while still remaining in the free tier.

By logging in, you can use more advanced tools, such as Curves to edit the light and color. You can also add images at this point and work on a photo composite.

Another fun part that gets unlocked when you’re logged in is the effects. So, you can add motion blur, grain, glitch, and more.

I also like that being signed in lets you access your previous projects and anything shared with you.

The last tier is for users with a Creative Cloud subscription that includes Photoshop. This will unlock all the tools, give you access to generative AI, and allow you to work with raw files.

The interface is very clean and intuitive, so any new user will find their way around quite easily.

If you’re coming from the desktop version of Photoshop, it may take you a moment to wrap your head around things – but don’t worry, it won’t be long.

Currently, Photoshop Web is still in Beta, but I haven’t encountered any problems so far. Plus, it means that it’s only bound to get better.

Resources

• Lightroom vs Photoshop: Full Comparison

11. Polarr Next (Online Lightroom Alternative)

My previous online alternative to Lightroom was still from Adobe, so it might not work for people trying to move away from the brand. If you’re in that situation, you’ll want to try Polarr Next.

Just like Lightroom, Polarr Next has a photo management section and a photo editing section – both run in your browser, so you don’t need to download any software.

If you’re concerned about privacy, Next doesn’t upload your files to a cloud; it works within your computer, even when you use the browser version. Yet there’s a desktop version for anyone who prefers working this way.

The AI-powered culling tool helps you to select the best images based on focus, exposure, duplicates, and other criteria. It automatically groups similar photos and offers rating and category tools.

This is a time-saver for anyone working events or weddings who needs to cull hundreds of images in a short period.

 

Moving on to the editing side, you can easily apply the same edits to multiple photos by selecting a reference image. Polarr Next learns your style as you use it, so your workflow will get faster over time.

You’ll find all the editing tools necessary to achieve professional results; it supports raw files, and you can apply selective edits thanks to its masking options.

There’s a wide range of editing tools, including all the standard features you’d expect from an Adobe Lightroom alternative, plus several tools that Lightroom doesn’t offer.

The interface is quite similar to Lightroom and most other editing software, making it easier to transition into and intuitive for beginners.

A welcome feature is that you can sign in to Polarr Next and use it completely free. So, it’s like an unlimited free trial.

Once you need to export your work, you can choose to subscribe if you’re convinced, or you can simply pay for the export you need. If you’re a professional photographer, the subscription is definitely the way to go.

However, casual users can benefit from the pay-as-you-go option, which I haven’t found in any other software.

If you don’t need the photo management options and all the bells and whistles offered by Polarr Next, you can always use the traditional Polarr instead.

This option makes editing JPEG images refreshingly quick, especially considering nothing is stored locally on your computer. You can upload your own photos or experiment with various sample images from the Polarr library.

One caveat of an online photo editor is that nothing is saved – if you lose your power or your browser freezes, for example, all your edits will be lost.

Another issue is that some users won’t be comfortable uploading personal photos, even though nothing is permanently stored on Polarr’s servers.

If you can get over these reservations, Polarr Next is a powerful and robust editing software with some advanced features not seen elsewhere for free. The portrait enhancement tools are particularly impressive, with some that rival Luminar Neo’s.

Unfortunately, you can’t upload RAW images to Next, presumably to save on bandwidth. However, as long as you have a relatively high-resolution JPEG file, you can still expect some decent highlight/shadow recovery from the image processing engine.

There’s also a Polarr app, but it’s not as fully featured as the online version. Although both versions are free to use, there’s also a premium edition that offers features such as LUTs, Denoise, Masks, premium filters, and custom overlays.

12. Snapseed (Free Lightroom Alternative for Android)

Lightroom has an excellent freemium app. So, if your motivation to change Lightroom for mobile edits is related to your budget, you can simply keep your free Adobe account and keep using it.

You’ll lose access to a few tools, mostly the ones that use generative AI, but the app remains an excellent choice for both basic and professional edits.

However, if you want a non-Adobe free alternative, Snapseed is an excellent choice.

Snapseed is a free photo editing app developed by Google, available for Android or iOS. With over 100 million downloads on the Google Play Store, it’s the most popular mobile photography app you’ll find.

Featuring 29 tools and filters, including healing, brush, structure, HDR and perspective, Snapseed is remarkably comprehensive for a free app with no ads or paid upgrades.

You can work with JPG or RAW files, tuning each image with a range of basic and advanced editing tools to make your images look better.

The selective ‘Control Point’ tool is particularly useful for selectively adjusting various aspects of your photo: you place up to 8 points on the image and assign separate adjustments and enhancements, with the Snapseed algorithm doing the rest.

Working with masks for selective edits is also possible, though it’s less intuitive than the overall app experience.

Snapseed allows you to do things like remove dust spots, powerlines and any other unwanted element from your photos with relative ease.

However, Lightroom Mobile’s newer Generative Remove feature is more advanced, allowing you to circle unwanted elements and have AI intelligently replace them. Lightroom’s Quick Actions also make fine-tuning adjustments faster and more streamlined.

Where Snapseed stands out is in its creative tools. Unlike Lightroom Mobile, Snapseed allows you to add text and annotations directly to your images.

Then there are all the various looks that can be applied to each image to get them ready to be shared on social media – grunge, grainy film, vintage, retrolux, noir, black and white, and our favourite, the double exposure features that allow you to blend two photos much like in Photoshop.

For selfie lovers, the face enhancement and face pose tools are fun and useful for doing things like sharpening eyes, adding face-specific lighting or smoothing skin.

On the downside, you shouldn’t expect as many updates as you would on Lightroom mobile and most of them are just bug fixes – not the introduction of new features.

Resources

• Snapseed help
• Is there a PC version of Snapseed?

How I Test the Best Alternatives to Adobe Lightroom

I’ve been a professional photographer for about 10 years, and I’ve used plenty of different photo editing software apps.

I’ve also reviewed software for Shotkit for some time now, and both experiences have shown me what’s important for both a professional and a newcomer to photo editing.

I approach these tests with certain criteria in mind: user interface, ease of use, performance, features and price.

With these in mind, I test each piece of software from the perspectives of a beginner, an enthusiast, and a professional.

Since many professionals already use Adobe Lightroom with no need for a replacement, this article focuses on others who are more likely to be looking for an alternative to Lightroom.

In my opinion, Lightroom is the best overall editing software, but I appreciate that the ongoing subscription isn’t for everyone. That’s why price was a big factor when testing the alternative options.

Regarding actual user testing, I spent time with each software, using the main tools and features to provide a balanced review of strengths and weaknesses and to determine whether each was a true Adobe Lightroom Classic alternative.

Why Replace Lightroom with Another Image Editing Software?

Adobe Lightroom is a powerful RAW photo editor and organizer with an amazing mobile app, but it does have its limitations.

Here are 7 reasons to choose one of the best Lightroom alternatives in our guide:

1. You can’t buy Lightroom; it’s only available through a subscription.
2. If you cancel your subscription, you can no longer access your Creative Cloud applications. You can continue to access your photos on your local hard drive in Lightroom for desktop, but you cannot edit them (source: Adobe).
3. Lightroom doesn’t offer layer editing, and some tasks like HDR require Photoshop.
4. Lightroom has a steep learning curve if you want to use its full potential, and it may be overkill for many users.
5. The Lightroom image cataloging system makes file management confusing.
6. Performance can be sluggish, especially on low-powered computers.
7. Tethered shooting is supported, but very basic.

Lightroom photo editing is undoubtedly convenient and efficient, but that doesn’t mean there might not be a better solution for you.

Especially considering the budget, there are definitely great free alternatives that can work for both professionals and amateurs.

See also: Alternatives to Adobe software

Other AI Workflow Tools Worth Considering

While they aren’t Lightroom replacements themselves, apps such as Aftershoot are redefining how photographers approach culling, editing and retouching.

AI culling removes duplicates, blurred shots and blinks, and learns your style to flag top selects.

AI editing lets you apply your signature look across an entire shoot, speeding bulk edits while preserving creative control.

AI retouching removes blemishes, smooths skin, whitens teeth, and instantly removes stray hairs and objects.

If your workflow is built around high volume (weddings, events, portraits) and you value time saved as much as creative control, Aftershoot offers a true end-to-end alternative to the “import → develop → export” grind.

Tools like Aftershoot complement rather than replace full editors like Lightroom or Capture One, and demonstrate how quickly AI is reshaping modern workflows to save photographers time.

You can read our full review of Aftershoot to learn more.

Other Common Software Comparisons to Lightroom

Recently, on forums, I’ve seen users asking how Lr compares to other popular photo editors.

It’s a tricky comparison, since the Lightroom apps are actually two distinctly different software – one cloud-based and one local.

Here are some of the most common comparisons:

• Photo Mechanic vs Lightroom

Both Photo Mechanic and Lightroom offer excellent tools for managing and editing photos, but they target different audiences.

Photo Mechanic is a lightning-fast photo browser and metadata editor, particularly popular among photojournalists and sports photographers. It’s known for its powerful batch-processing capabilities and support for customizable IPTC metadata templates.

Lightroom offers a library and photo management options, but it’s not ideal for handling large collections or culling tasks. However, it’s a more comprehensive photo editing software designed for a wider range of users.

In addition to photo browsing and metadata editing, Lightroom provides a far broader set of editing tools. It also has powerful organizational features, such as the ability to create collections and integrate with Photoshop.

Some photographers even use Photo Mechanic alongside Lightroom for the best of both worlds in their workflows.

• PhotoScape X vs Lightroom

PhotoScape X is free photo editing software designed for casual users who only need basic photo editing tools. It supports RAW image editing and offers a user-friendly interface.

In this day and age, it feels quite basic because we’re used to AI tools and generally speaking, more bells and whistles.

More serious hobbyists will need Lightroom or one of the other alternatives presented in this article to find the features they need to take image editing and management to the next level.

• Pixelmator Pro vs Lightroom

Pixelmator Pro is exclusive to macOS, meaning Windows users are out of luck on this one. It provides a full set of editing tools, including RAW support, and a user-friendly interface.

It offers advanced features such as layer-based editing, and it also supports vector images and video editing. So, it fits a wider use, but because of that, it lacks the in-depth options offered by Lightroom.

Unlike Lightroom, you can buy a license and not depend on a subscription. However, it’s also included in the Apple Creator Studio subscription if you prefer.

Lightroom is also much better suited for image organization, with the ability to create Collections and use Smart Previews, and its integration with Photoshop is useful for detailed image manipulation.

A more relevant comparison is Pixelmator Pro vs Photoshop, since both offer layer-based editing workflows.

How to Choose the Best Lightroom Alternative for You

Depending on your needs, several great image editors can do a similar or better job than Lightroom.

Here’s a summary to help you decide which of the alternatives to Lightroom is right for you:

Adobe Lightroom Classic is the world’s most popular photo editing software, but it definitely isn’t for everyone.

Lack of layers, a confusing file management system, sluggish performance, and a subscription-only payment model are among the reasons you might be looking for a Lightroom replacement.

In my case as a professional photographer, I subscribe to the Adobe Photography Plan and use Lightroom and Photoshop regularly.

Even though I’ve tried all the best Adobe Lightroom alternatives, I still find I need Lightroom in both my personal and professional workflow.

Features like fast batch processing of thousands of images, streamlined imports/exports, advanced editing tools, and excellent mobile app/cross-device cloud integration (aka Lightroom online) make Lightroom a justifiable expense for me. Even if I weren’t a pro photographer, I’d still use it.

In conjunction, I also use Mylio Photos to manage all the photos and videos across all my family’s devices – I love the ability to do all this privately, and the face-tagging feature works extremely well despite being entirely offline.

What are you using to edit and organize your photos? Feel free to leave any comments below with your experiences and recommendations.

• How much does Lightroom cost?

How much does Lightroom cost? Well, that depends on the subscription plan you choose.

The starting price for Lightroom is USD$11.99, and the price with Photoshop is USD$19.99. However, you can also get Lightroom inside the Creative Cloud Pro (All Apps) subscription.