{"slug": "aperture", "name": "Aperture", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 12, "warners": 3, "score": 2.781, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2026-01-13", "latest": "2026-07-21", "why": "Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 3, "compare": 1, "warn": 3}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/lineageos/android_packages_apps_aperture", "official_url": "https://github.com/lineageos/android_packages_apps_aperture", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Aperture"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 783967888, "item_id": 48997993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997993", "by": "whyenot", "date": "2026-07-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "excerpt": "Bring. Back. Aperture!!! Yes there are alternative to Lightroom out there (Capture One, for example), but Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "context": "", "use_case": "photo editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users"}, {"id": 769540944, "item_id": 48096309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096309", "by": "bengt", "date": "2026-05-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used it for years after 2015", "excerpt": "I'd consider the functionality Aperture held to have been killed. I used it for years after 2015 due to a lack of a functional replacement that wasn't a subscription. It still find myself missing what seems to be basic capabilities while using Photos.", "context": "", "use_case": "Photo library management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Killed by Apple"}, {"id": 764229088, "item_id": 47764318, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764318", "by": "Y-bar", "date": "2026-04-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still miss the UI and workflow of Aperture.", "excerpt": "Only one mention of Aperture, suppose I can be the second one to also lament the loss. Lightroom never grew on me and I still miss the UI and workflow of Aperture. Might give this a try. I just keep on holding back because I do not want to lose all my thousands upon thousands of edits.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor"}, {"id": 756463920, "item_id": 47278995, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47278995", "by": "maxloh", "date": "2026-03-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also check out the one by LineageOS", "excerpt": "Also check out the one by LineageOS: https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Aperture", "context": "", "use_case": "Android camera app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Camera is a FOSS Camera App for Android"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 745678032, "item_id": 46604877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604877", "by": "incanus77", "date": "2026-01-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Huge misstep and insult to the user base.", "excerpt": "Me too, with Aperture. Huge misstep and insult to the user base. This is a useful tool: https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive However, you still need to run an older OS. I've still got on my todo list the process of fixing all of this.", "context": "Aperture user with a large photo archive", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple Creator Studio"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["photo editing", "photo library management", "android camera app"], "compared": [{"slug": "adobe-lightroom", "name": "Adobe Lightroom", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "capture-one", "name": "Capture One", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nitro", "name": "Nitro", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "photomator", "name": "Photomator", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "apple-photos", "name": "Apple Photos", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48996211", "title": "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095468", "title": "Killed by Apple", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47824403", "title": "The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46699697", "title": "A Lament for Aperture", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48864252", "title": "An Update on the scraper situation", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760529", "title": "DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1, "compare": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "quotes": [{"id": 783972656, "item_id": 48998291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48998291", "by": "CharlesW", "date": "2026-07-21", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Aperture (RIP) is never coming back, but many of us Aperature fans have been happily using Nitro\u00b9, built by the guy who led Aperture and other imaging teams at Apple\u00b2. \u00b9 https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/index.html \u00b2 https://www.gentlemencoders.com/about/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users"}, {"id": 783967888, "item_id": 48997993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997993", "by": "whyenot", "date": "2026-07-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "excerpt": "Bring. Back. Aperture!!! Yes there are alternative to Lightroom out there (Capture One, for example), but Aperture was so Mac native and was such a joy to use on OS X.", "context": "", "use_case": "photo editing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple has decided to compete for creativity app users"}, {"id": 781961939, "item_id": 48872621, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48872621", "by": "kordlessagain", "date": "2026-07-11", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Lightning Labs also worked on a project called Apeture for a time that did something similar.", "excerpt": "I came up with the idea and helped build Grub, the distributed crawler. Looksmart bought it, ran it for a time, then sold it to Wikimedia. I reclaimed the name recently (abandoned mark) and have a new crawler now that is agentic. I use it for my own research runs, and it's not my main focus at this point, nor am I trying to get it attention. A lot of LLMs and coding agents can easily fetch content if it is needed and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Update on the scraper situation"}, {"id": 769564496, "item_id": 48097781, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48097781", "by": "eddyg", "date": "2026-05-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "The guy who led the Aperture, iPhoto, RAW Camera and Core Image engineering teams (an 18-year Apple veteran) is behind Nitro, which works on macOS, iPadOS and iOS. https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Killed by Apple"}, {"id": 769540944, "item_id": 48096309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096309", "by": "bengt", "date": "2026-05-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used it for years after 2015", "excerpt": "I'd consider the functionality Aperture held to have been killed. I used it for years after 2015 due to a lack of a functional replacement that wasn't a subscription. It still find myself missing what seems to be basic capabilities while using Photos.", "context": "", "use_case": "Photo library management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Killed by Apple"}, {"id": 765225953, "item_id": 47826622, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826622", "by": "jasomill", "date": "2026-04-19", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I switched to Capture One, which at least offers perpetual licensing, but their pricing has become sufficiently annoying that I plan to look very closely at DaVinci Resolve's new photography features as soon as I have time (I already use Resolve for video and have a paid license for it, and in fact have have considered using it for photography in the past because it has a much better UI for nondestructive editing tha", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe"}, {"id": 765209714, "item_id": 47825607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825607", "by": "matwood", "date": "2026-04-19", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture", "excerpt": "Way back when the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture, though I really wish they hadn't. I've tried all the competitors multiple times but keep coming back to LR for my DSLR usage.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "Aperture", "story": "The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe"}, {"id": 764229088, "item_id": 47764318, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764318", "by": "Y-bar", "date": "2026-04-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still miss the UI and workflow of Aperture.", "excerpt": "Only one mention of Aperture, suppose I can be the second one to also lament the loss. Lightroom never grew on me and I still miss the UI and workflow of Aperture. Might give this a try. I just keep on holding back because I do not want to lose all my thousands upon thousands of edits.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor"}, {"id": 756463920, "item_id": 47278995, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47278995", "by": "maxloh", "date": "2026-03-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also check out the one by LineageOS", "excerpt": "Also check out the one by LineageOS: https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_apps_Aperture", "context": "", "use_case": "Android camera app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Camera is a FOSS Camera App for Android"}, {"id": 748084673, "item_id": 46755292, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46755292", "by": "nicoburns", "date": "2026-01-25", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I haven't used it in a decade, but when I last did need this kind of software IdImager's Photo Supreme came out top of my research. The photo editing capabilities were relatively weak (but it would integrate nicely with the editing software of your choice), but the cataloging capabilities were fantastic, and it had a lot of flexibility about how the files were stored on disk (have it organise that for you or not) and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Lament for Aperture"}, {"id": 748063265, "item_id": 46753954, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46753954", "by": "JKCalhoun", "date": "2026-01-25", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "has the \"paint an effect\" (like blur, sharpen) that Aperture had.", "excerpt": "I think you might be right. I've been using Pixelmator (and recently Pixelmator Pro) for years now. It's a great app and has the \"paint an effect\" (like blur, sharpen) that Aperture had. I suspect this app, now that Apple bought it, will be where we look for Aperture-like features going forward.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Lament for Aperture"}, {"id": 745678032, "item_id": 46604877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46604877", "by": "incanus77", "date": "2026-01-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Huge misstep and insult to the user base.", "excerpt": "Me too, with Aperture. Huge misstep and insult to the user base. This is a useful tool: https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive However, you still need to run an older OS. I've still got on my todo list the process of fixing all of this.", "context": "Aperture user with a large photo archive", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple Creator Studio"}]}