Alternatives to Adobe Lightroom in 2026

PhotoCraft storytold

PhotoCraft: An open-source, photo editor written by scratch in pure Rust

Complete system Experimental You want to try a native open-source Photoshop-style editor and can accept missing features.

★ 76k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today

Graphite GraphiteEditor

Community-built comprehensive 2D content creation appplication for graphic design, digital art, and interactive real-time motion graphics powered by a node-based procedural graphics engine

Complete system Experimental You want to experiment with procedural, non-destructive 2D design in an open-source tool.

★ 28k Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed today

ImageToolbox T8RIN

🖼️ Image Toolbox is a powerful app for advanced image manipulation. It offers dozens of features, from basic tools like crop and draw to filters, OCR, and a wide range of image processing options

Complete system Production-ready You want one free Android app for nearly every image manipulation task.

★ 15k Apache-2.0 Kotlin Active, pushed today

Darktable darktable-org

darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer

Complete system Production-ready You shoot raw and want a free Lightroom alternative.

★ 13k GPL-3.0 C Active, pushed today

Krita KDE

Krita is a free and open source cross-platform application that offers an end-to-end solution for creating digital art files from scratch built on the KDE and Qt frameworks.

Complete system Production-ready You want a professional-grade painting app without a subscription.

★ 11k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today

PixiEditor PixiEditor

PixiEditor is a Universal Editor for all your 2D needs

Complete system Usable Indie game developers or artists want a free editor for sprites and simple animation.

★ 8.1k LGPL-3.0 C# Active, pushed today

RawTherapee RawTherapee

A powerful cross-platform raw photo processing program

Complete system Production-ready You want fine control over raw development and do not need library management.

★ 4.3k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed yesterday

Pinta PintaProject

Simple GTK Paint Program

Complete system Production-ready You want a lightweight Paint.NET-style editor on Linux or macOS.

★ 4.1k MIT C# Active, pushed yesterday

Nomacs nomacs

nomacs is a free image viewer for windows, linux, and mac systems.

Complete system Production-ready You need a free viewer that opens many image formats quickly.

★ 3.3k GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today

Vue-fabric-editor ikuaitu

快图设计-基于fabric.js和Vue的开源图片编辑器，可自定义字体、素材、设计模板。fabric.js and Vue based image editor, can customize fonts, materials, design templates.

Building block Usable You are building a Canva-style design or product customisation feature and want a Vue starting point.

★ 8k MIT Vue Slowing, pushed 3 months ago

Jspaint 1j01

🎨 Classic MS Paint, ＲＥＶＩＶＥＤ + ✨Extras

Complete system Production-ready You want a simple familiar paint program in any browser.

★ 7.9k MIT JavaScript Slowing, pushed 4 months ago

Capcap realskyrin

⌘⌘ - A lightweight, native macOS screenshot tool that lives in your menu bar. Double-tap ⌘ Command to capture any region of your screen — instantly copied to clipboard, or annotate first with pen and mosaic tools.

Complete system Usable You take many annotated screenshots on a Mac and want a free, fast tool.

★ 1k MIT Swift Active, pushed 4 days ago

GimelStudio GimelStudio

Non-destructive 2D graphics editor (POC)

Complete system Experimental Only to study node-based image editing design.

★ 855 GPL-3.0 Dart Active, pushed 4 days ago

FerrumPix Bitpainter75

FerrumPix is a desktop photo management and editing application for Linux, Windows and macOS.

Complete system Experimental You self-host photos on Immich or Nextcloud and want a desktop app to manage and edit them.

★ 745 GPL-3.0 Visual Basic .NET Active, pushed today

ZLImageEditor longitachi

A powerful image editor framework. Supports graffiti, cropping, mosaic, text stickers, image stickers, filters.

Building block Production-ready Your iOS app needs a ready-made photo editing screen.

★ 634 MIT Swift Active, pushed 14 days ago

Photo-editor-luts-swiftui khanhuitse05

🎨 An image editor using SwifUI & muukii/Pixel

Template or starter Experimental You are learning to build a filter-based photo editor in SwiftUI.

★ 525 MIT Swift Active, pushed 5 days ago

ClearPDF Chethan616

Open-source Android PDF and document toolkit with PDF tools, Office viewing, XLSX editing, scanning, and image editing. Built with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose.

Complete system Usable You want an open-source all-in-one document app on Android.

★ 433 MIT Kotlin Active, pushed 3 days ago

PaintFE kylejckson

A lightweight image editor for Windows, MacOS, Linux with a focus on intuitive use and modern UI design. Features layers, filters, brushes, selection tools, color adjustments, animated images support, and a built-in scripting. Single portable executable (or web build), no install required.

Complete system Usable You want a Paint.NET-like editor that runs without installation on any desktop OS.

★ 413 MIT Rust Active, pushed 3 days ago

ProImageEditor hm21

The pro_image_editor is a Flutter widget designed for image editing within your application. It provides a flexible and convenient way to integrate image editing capabilities into your Flutter project.

Building block Production-ready A Flutter app needs a customisable image editor without building one.

★ 397 BSD-3-Clause Dart Active, pushed today

Textual Paint 1j01

:art: MS Paint in your terminal.

Complete system Usable You want to draw ANSI or ASCII art in a terminal for fun.

★ 1.1k MIT Python Slowing, pushed 8 months ago

Klecks bitbof

Web-based painting tool powering Kleki.com

Complete system Production-ready You want a free browser painting tool, or to embed one in a community site.

★ 388 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 13 days ago

React-native-image-marker JimmyDaddy

React Native image watermarking for iOS, Android, and Web — text, logos, tiled layers, batch Recipes, invisible traces, and an optional interaction editor.

Building block Usable Your mobile app must watermark photos before sharing or uploading.

★ 369 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday

Redlamp pdcgomes

A native, open-source RAW photo editor for Mac, iPad and iPhone that feels immediately familiar to Lightroom users.

Complete system Experimental You are a photographer on Apple Silicon who wants to follow an open Lightroom alternative early.

★ 367 MPL-2.0 Swift Active, pushed today

BitMappery igorski

Browser based non-destructive image editor with layering, masking, animation timeline, spritesheet editor, customizable brushes and cloud storage integration for all your online editing.

Complete system Usable You want non-destructive layer editing in a browser, especially for sprites.

★ 347 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday

Pixelitor lbalazscs

A desktop image editor

Complete system Usable You want a cross-platform free image editor with many filters and are fine running Java.

★ 268 GPL-3.0 Java Active, pushed yesterday

AlcedoStudio zidage

Open-source RAW photo processing and digital asset management software.

Complete system Experimental You want an open-source RAW workflow that handles large medium-format files.

★ 264 GPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today

React Image Editor unlayer

Image Editor Component for React — crop, resize, filters, draw, text, shapes, stickers, frames, and an AI Assistant

Integration Usable You already use Unlayer or want a polished image editor component and accept a commercial back end.

★ 263 MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 6 days ago

HyCanvas hyscaler

Open-source Canva alternative you can self-host: graphics, slides, video, whiteboards and docs. AGPL-3.0.

Complete system Experimental A marketing team wants Canva-like design work on its own servers and can tolerate an early project.

★ 260 AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 5 days ago

AfterFrame YIWANG3

Local-first photo library for Mac and Windows. Browse, cull and search thousands of photos and RAWs, find people and places on-device, and edit with LUTs, text, stickers, camera frames and collages. Agent-ready over MCP.

Complete system Experimental A photographer wants fast culling and light editing of large exports without a cloud service.

★ 260 MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today

CalibRaw Duecki1

Free, open-source RAW editor for Linux, Android, Windows and macOS. GPU-accelerated, non-destructive, with masks, HDR merge and local AI.

Complete system Experimental You want a free RAW developer that also runs on Android.

★ 258 GPL-3.0 Rust Active, pushed today

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Inc.

Explore quick new ways to create custom scenes, make complex edits, & combine images online or with the free Photoshop mobile app.

Complete system Production-ready You do professional photo retouching or compositing, or need to exchange PSD files with other professionals.

11k readers a month Since 1990 Commercial

Adobe Illustrator Adobe Inc.

Powered by generative AI, magically transform a text prompt into a fully editable vector graphic with Adobe Illustrator, the industry-leading vector graphics software.

Complete system Production-ready You produce professional vector artwork or need to exchange AI and EPS files with print and brand agencies.

2.8k readers a month Since 1987 Commercial

Pixelmator Pro Apple Inc.

Pixelmator Pro is a powerful, easy-to-use image editor that brings professional tools and powerful AI features to everyone across Mac and iPad.

Complete system Production-ready You edit images on a Mac and want a capable, inexpensive alternative to Photoshop.

314 readers a month Since 2007 Commercial

Capture One Capture One A/S

Discover Capture One: the ultimate photo editing software designed for photographers who demand precision and control. With advanced editing tools, seamless RAW handling, and powerful tethering capabilities, Capture One elevates your photography to new heights. Experience unparalleled color control,

Complete system Production-ready You are a studio or commercial photographer who shoots tethered and needs precise colour.

258 readers a month Commercial