u/hdrmaps

I’m currently evaluating alternatives to Adobe. I’ve been paying €15/month for the Photoshop + Lightroom subscription for several years, and while it’s not particularly expensive, I’m curious whether I can get a similar workflow without a recurring subscription.
I work with spherical HDR panoramas, so each panorama typically consists of around 90 Sony A7R IV RAW files. Because of that, export performance and overall workflow speed are very important to me.

Here’s a quick benchmark exporting 95 RAW files:
🥇 Lightroom Classic — 1:20
📷 ON1 Photo RAW 2026 — 2:53
📷 DxO PhotoLab — 3:25
📷 RawTherapee — 7:54

Test PC:
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
NVIDIA RTX 3090
64 GB RAM

Besides the export benchmark, I also spent some time comparing the overall workflow and responsiveness of each application.
So far, ON1 Photo RAW 2026 feels the closest to Lightroom. The interface is familiar, it has most of the features I need, and the perpetual license is appealing.
That said, Lightroom is still noticeably faster, and at €15/month for both Photoshop and Lightroom, I’m not yet convinced it’s worth switching.
Has anyone here made the move away from Lightroom and genuinely not looked back?

I’m trying to move away from Adobe after paying €15/month for the Photoshop + Lightroom subscription for several years.
I work with spherical HDR panoramas, where a single panorama typically consists of around 90 Sony A7R IV RAW files. That means export speed and overall workflow responsiveness are extremely important for me, so I decided to compare a few popular RAW editors.

Exporting 95 Sony A7R IV RAW files:
🥇 Lightroom Classic — 1:20
📷 ON1 Photo RAW 2026 — 2:53
📷 DxO PhotoLab — 3:25
📷 RawTherapee — 7:54

Test system:
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• NVIDIA RTX 3090
• 64 GB RAM

Besides export times, I also evaluated the overall workflow, usability and responsiveness.
At the moment, ON1 Photo RAW 2026 feels like the best compromise. It’s currently available as a perpetual license, has a Lightroom-like interface, and includes most of the tools I use every day.
Lightroom is still significantly faster, but I’d gladly accept a small performance hit if it means getting rid of Adobe’s subscription.
For those of you using RawTherapee regularly: is there anything I should tweak to improve export performance, or is this about what I should expect?

Did some export speed tests today while looking for an alternative to Adobe.
I’ve been paying €15/month for the Adobe Photoshop + Lightroom subscription for several years now, and I’d really like to switch to a perpetual license.
I work with spherical HDR panoramas, so each panorama typically consists of around 90 RAW files. Because of that, export speed is a critical part of my workflow. I also evaluated the overall responsiveness and workflow efficiency of each application—not just the export times.
Exporting 95 Sony A7R IV RAW files:
🥇 Lightroom Classic — 1:20
📷 ON1 Photo RAW 2026 — 2:53
📷 DxO PhotoLab — 3:25
📷 RawTherapee — 7:54
Test PC:
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• NVIDIA RTX 3090
• 64 GB RAM
So far, ON1 Photo RAW 2026 looks like the best overall value. It’s currently available with an affordable perpetual license, the interface is intuitive and very similar to Lightroom, and it includes most of the features I use every day.
Lightroom is still the clear winner in terms of export performance, but ON1 seems like a very reasonable compromise if your goal is to move away from Adobe’s subscription model.
Has anyone here fully switched from Lightroom to ON1? I’d love to hear about your long-term experience.

April 2026 update — during the last month I managed to create 11 new unclipped 29K CC0 HDRIs for the CG community.

Capturing HDRIs during winter in the Owl Mountains (southwest Poland) is always difficult because of rain, snow, fog, and strong wind, but the weather is finally improving and I’m preparing much more new content now.

OpenHDRI was created with real-time rendering and game development workflows in mind, and all HDRIs are designed to work well in Unreal Engine and other major 3D applications and renderers.

A while ago I also received an Epic Games sponsored PC set, which helped me continue developing this project and improving the quality of my work. In a way, creating free CC0 HDRIs for the community feels like giving something back now.

Recently I also lost my day job at a printer shop, which honestly puts me in a strange position — more time for HDRI creation, but much less financial stability. Still, I hope I’ll eventually be able to focus fully on building free CC0 HDRIs for the community through OpenHDRI.

And if somebody would like to support this project and help me continue creating new HDRIs, you can also support OpenHDRI on Patreon.

If there are any specific HDRI locations, lighting conditions, or environments you’d like to see, let me know.