darktable vs thumbsup

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted photo management options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
Featuredarktablethumbsup
CategoryPhoto ManagementPhoto Management
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageCJavaScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM2,048 MB256 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, binary, snapbare-metal, binary
GitHub stars★ 12,904★ 860
First released20092016
ReplacesAdobe LightroomGoogle Photos, Flickr

Why pick each one

Choose darktable if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 12.9k GitHub stars
  • Written in C
darktable details

Choose thumbsup if…

  • Extremely portable output
  • No database
thumbsup details

Frequently asked questions

Is darktable or thumbsup better?

Neither is universally better. darktable has the larger community, while thumbsup is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are darktable and thumbsup free and open-source?

Yes. darktable is licensed under GPL-3.0 and thumbsup under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run darktable and thumbsup with Docker?

darktable: check the project docs for container support. thumbsup: check the project docs for container support.

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