Ansel
Ranked 9 of 12 photo editors by recommenders
Recommended as a cleaner, easier fork of Darktable that fixes its UX problems. Critics point to regressions during its development and a tone they dislike.
Recommended as a cleaner, easier fork of Darktable that fixes its UX problems. Critics point to regressions during its development and a tone they dislike.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fixes Darktable's UX and workflow problems
“The ansel fork seeks to remedy a lot of the bad design and workflow choices.”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Darktable” “addresses a lot of the UX issues that has been in the works for a few years”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Darktable” “where they try to roll back lot of these ux mishaps”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor” - Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Ansel – OSS volume visualization tool”
Leaner and less cluttered than Darktable
“Ansel is what Darktable 4.0 could have been if it didn’t die of feature creep”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Darktable” “I find Ansel a bit easier to operate.”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor” Developer's tutorials and steady progress
“I think the Ansel developer has a YouTube series with tutorials on how to edit in Darktable”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” “he did a great job on that from what I've seen so far”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Darktable” “Yes it is stabilising, IME.”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Darktable”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Stability issues and regressions
“Yes it is stabilising, IME.”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Darktable” “the amount of regressions introduced was wild”
Comment from 29 Jul 2026 in “Darktable”
Other photo editors people recommend
The four most recommended other photo editors, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photopea | 84 | 13 | 87% | 11 | 6 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Affinity Photo | 81 | 41 | 66% | 11 | — | — |
| Adobe Lightroom | 68 | 75 | 48% | 10 | 17 yrs6 owners | — |
| Pixelmator Pro | 29 | 9 | 76% | 10 | — | Approved |
| AnselThis page | 9 | 3 | 75% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the tone also deeply bothers me”
“The ansel fork seeks to remedy a lot of the bad design and workflow choices.”
“Somebody should do it with Ansel IMHO”
“Yes it is stabilising, IME.”
“he did a great job on that from what I've seen so far”
“the amount of regressions introduced was wild”
“addresses a lot of the UX issues that has been in the works for a few years”
“Ansel is what Darktable 4.0 could have been if it didn’t die of feature creep”
“which does what I wish they did”
“I find Ansel a bit easier to operate.”
“where they try to roll back lot of these ux mishaps”
“I think the Ansel developer has a YouTube series with tutorials on how to edit in Darktable”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.