# Alternatives to digiKam

Open source photo management with RAW.

digiKam ranks #7 of 8 in RAW photo editors, with an Alt Score of 64. It is licensed under GPL-2.0, free from Free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/digikam/
Category: RAW photo editors

## Where digiKam stands out

- **Open source** — 3 of 8 apps with a verified answer have this

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Photographers and hobbyists who need to manage large digital photo and video libraries, from a few thousand images to collections exceeding 100,000.
- **What you get**: digiKam imports media from cameras, smartphones, and other devices, then organizes it with albums, tags, labels, and metadata editing. It includes AI-assisted tagging and facial recognition, advanced search and filtering by date, geolocation, or tags, and a built-in editor for RAW processing, color correction, cropping, retouching, and batch edits. Collections can be exported to social media, slideshows, or web galleries.
- **How it works**: Import photos and videos into digiKam, organize them into albums and tag them (manually or via AI/face detection), then edit individual images or apply batch operations before exporting or sharing the results.

## Profile

- **License**: GPL-2.0 (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Pricing model**: Free (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Starts at**: Free (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-10)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Capture One](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/capture-one.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS |
| 2 | [Darktable](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/darktable.md) | 91 | GPL-3.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 3 | [ON1 Photo RAW](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/on1-photo-raw.md) | 91 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS |
| 4 | [ACDSee](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/acdsee.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS |
| 5 | [DxO PhotoLab](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/dxo-photolab.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS |
| 6 | [Lightroom](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/lightroom.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 7 | [RawTherapee](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/rawtherapee.md) | 60 | GPL-3.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| RAW photo editors checklist | digiKam | Capture One | Darktable | ON1 Photo RAW | ACDSee | DxO PhotoLab |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Subscription | Free | One-time | One-time | One-time |
| Starts at | Free | $18.00/month | Free | $99.99 | $39.95 | €149.99 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Proprietary | GPL-3.0 | Proprietary | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS |
| RAW format coverage | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Non-destructive editing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lens corrections | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI denoising | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Local adjustments (masks) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tethered shooting | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No |
| Catalog / library management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-time purchase option | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Plugins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for digiKam. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: GPL-2.0 — <https://github.com/KDE/digikam/blob/master/COPYING> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991”
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux — <https://www.digikam.org/about/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “digiKam is an advanced open-source digital photo management application that runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS.”
- **Pricing model**: Free — <https://www.digikam.org/donate/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: GPL-2.0, no purchase required; donations voluntary.
  - Quote: “financial contributions are crucial for sustaining Free/Libre and Open Source Software projects”
- **Starts at**: Free — <https://www.digikam.org/download/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Direct free binary downloads, no price/key.
  - Quote: “Linux Intel AppImage (glibc >= 2.31) ... Windows Intel 10 or later ... macOS Silicon 11.3 or later”
- **Status**: active — <https://www.digikam.org/news/2026-06-07-9.1.0_release_announcement/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “After three months of active development, bug triage, and feature integration, the digiKam team is proud to announce the stable release of digiKam 9.1.0.”
- **RAW format coverage**: Yes — <https://www.digikam.org/about/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Supports Raw files using the LibRaw library, which is actively maintained and regularly updated to support the latest camera models. Over one thousand formats are currently supported.”
- **Non-destructive editing**: Yes — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/right_sidebar/versions_view.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “The Versions tab shows the history and the saved versions of a photograph. ... the second and the fifth version derive directly from the original image, the third and fourth version are children of th”
- **Lens corrections**: Yes — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/image_editor/enhancement_tools.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “The digiKam Lens Auto-Correction tool can correct lens imperfections such as Distortion, Chromatic aberration, Vignetting, and Geometry, and do so automatically for hundreds of common lenses. ... The ”
- **AI denoising**: No — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/image_editor/enhancement_tools.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Parametric threshold noise reduction, not a deep-learning denoiser; digiKam's AI features (face detection, auto-tags, etc.) don't include denoising.
  - Quote: “Estimate Noise : automatically computes all noise reduction settings based on an analysis of the noise contained in the image.”
- **Local adjustments (masks)**: No — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/image_editor/enhancement_tools.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: No brush/gradient/radial selective local-adjustment masking layer.
  - Quote: “Enhancement Tools Distortion Vignetting Correction ... Lens Auto-Correction ... Local Contrast ... Noise Reduction ... Healing Clone ... Background Blur”
- **Tethered shooting**: No — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/import_tools/camera_import.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Import tools transfer photos already on a camera/card via GPhoto2; no live tethered capture.
  - Quote: “digiKam Manual Import Tools Camera Import”
- **Catalog / library management**: Yes — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/asset_management/dam_overview.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Digital Asset Management (DAM) refers to every part of the process that follows taking a picture”
- **One-time purchase option**: No — <https://www.digikam.org/download/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Free binary downloads only; no purchase/paid tier.
  - Quote: “See all downloads!”
- **Open source**: Yes — <https://github.com/KDE/digikam/blob/master/COPYING> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation”
- **Plugins**: Yes — <https://docs.digikam.org/en/setup_application/plugins_settings.html> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Plugins Settings ... Generic Plugins Image Editor Plugins Batch Queue Manager Plugins Image Loaders”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/