Redlamp

Judgement

What it is

Complete system

What it does

A native RAW photo developer for Mac, iPad and iPhone built in Swift and Metal, with a Lightroom-like Develop workflow.

Adopt it when

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

Watch out

Alpha, about a month old; do not rely on it for client work yet.

Ready for

Experimental

Runs as

Desktop app and mobile app

Built with

Swift and Metal

How established

New: started 1 month ago, latest release v0.3.5-alpha.

What the license allows

You can use it inside a product you sell; changes you make to its own files must be shared.

Judged on 2026-11-03 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: Redlamp → Swift → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

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