LightCraft
Ranked 12 of 12 photo editors by recommenders
Free Lightroom-style photo editor, praised for a familiar interface, working presets and speed. Caveat: an early alpha that some find buggy and inaccurate.
Free Lightroom-style photo editor, praised for a familiar interface, working presets and speed. Caveat: an early alpha that some find buggy and inaccurate.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Familiar, Lightroom-like interface
“LightCraft is basically a Lightroom clone, so everything feels familiar and standard.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust” “It worked fine and the UI is very similar to Lightroom.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Open-Source Rust Alternatives to Adobe Apps”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Buggy, slow and glitchy alpha
“they are already really useful, even in an extremely buggy alpha state”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust” “it's kinda slow and glitchy”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “An open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Microsoft Word in pure Rust” Exposure and results differ from Lightroom
“LightCraft's exposure slider doesn't even work well. Blows everything out.”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Where is all the new, good software?” “the results are completely different and not in a good way”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Adobe Creative Suite Cleanroom Port to Rust”
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 |
| LightCraftThis page | 5 | 5 | 50% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“LightCraft's exposure slider doesn't even work well. Blows everything out.”
“I tried Lightcraft[1] which is their Lightroom clone, and I was disappointed after all that hype.”
“it's kinda slow and glitchy”
“LightCraft is basically a Lightroom clone, so everything feels familiar and standard.”
“they are already really useful, even in an extremely buggy alpha state”
“It worked fine and the UI is very similar to Lightroom.”
“does what no other alternative can, Presets from lightroom”
“amateur attempt at RAW processing from first principles”
“the results are completely different and not in a good way”
“absurdly fast compared to the molasses originals”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.