Alternatives to Shotwell

A photo manager for the GNOME desktop that imports, organises and makes simple edits to photos. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Shotwell.

  • digiKam

    A photo manager built for libraries of a hundred thousand images, with face recognition, batch processing and heavy metadata support.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    digiKam adds face recognition, advanced search and batch processing for libraries over 100,000 images on Windows, macOS and Linux, with a steeper learning curve.

  • Fotocx

    A free Linux photo editor and collection manager released under the GPL version 3.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    Fotocx is another free Linux editor and collection manager under GPL-3.0 without tracking or ads, maintained as a small single-developer project.

  • gThumb

    An open-source image viewer and browser for the GNOME desktop on Linux.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    gThumb is another open-source GNOME application that views and sorts photos in local folders, acting more as a viewer and browser than an importing library.

  • KPhotoAlbum

    A KDE desktop app for tagging, describing and quickly searching large personal photo collections.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    KPhotoAlbum is a KDE app for fast tagging and searching by people, places and custom categories, but it organizes photos rather than editing them.

  • Tonfotos

    A desktop photo organizer for family archives with face recognition, duplicate finding and phone import.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinuxAndroidiOS

    Tonfotos adds face recognition, duplicate finding and phone import across desktop and mobile platforms, but it is not open source and some features are paid.

  • XnView MP

    Views, converts and organises images in more than five hundred formats, free for personal use.

    FreemiumProprietaryWindowsmacOSLinux

    XnView MP offers browsing, tagging and batch conversion across more than five hundred formats on Windows, macOS and Linux, but it is closed source.

  • Adobe Lightroom

    Adobe's photo organizer and RAW editor with a library synced across desktop, web and mobile.

    PaidProprietaryWindowsmacOSAndroidiOSWeb

    Adobe Lightroom adds RAW editing and a library synced across desktop, web and mobile, but it is subscription only with no Linux version.

  • Damselfly

    A server-based photo management system for large folder-based collections, with fast search and keyword tagging.

    FreeProprietaryWebSelf-hosted

    Damselfly moves the library to a server with web access, adding face and object detection and keyword tagging, but it needs a server to run.

Also worth comparing

These listings name Shotwell as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • Koko

    A KDE image gallery app for browsing photo albums on Linux desktops and mobile devices.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    Shotwell is an LGPL photo manager for the GNOME desktop that imports and organises a library and adds simple enhancement tools for quick fixes.

  • Rapid Photo Downloader

    A Linux app that imports, renames and backs up photos and videos from cameras and memory cards.

    FreeOpen sourceLinux

    Shotwell is an LGPL GNOME photo manager that imports and organises a photo library with simple edits, but it lacks backup during import and configurable renaming.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.