RawTherapee being less nerdy is also bizarre to hear, since it exposes much more technical details at once, without offering a definite workflow.
Strict terminology based on fundamental principles, strict reasoning and control over the pipeline, rooted in the video world. Perhaps that's why it looks somewhat foreign to you, it's a bit unlike most other photography tools which need to be marketed and typically offer "magic" with little reproducibility from one software to another. Like the saturation slider which is not actual saturation known from the color theory, at least in Lightroom and C1. Hence the endless bickering between photographers who don't understand fundamentals of color perception and fight over what software gives a better look.
Regarding the UI, maybe I'm different from the most but I honestly don't care how it looks, as long as it delivers and is usable. A professional tool is a truck, not a luxury car; it's alright to have it a bit dirty. I remember the days of Softimage 3D; when I've seen it the first time in 2000, it looked terribly ancient to me. But it was one of the most powerful CGI toolkits at the time.
Regarding the defaults, they are easily changed once and are used afterwards, provided you understand the fundamentals. However I've never needed to do so once I understood how it functions under the hood. The defaults look fine to me.
I'm not a professional photographer though, and despite DT being light years ahead of everyone in several areas I find it lacking in others, which prevents me from using it on a constant basis.
Kindly substantiate your claims.
DT has a clone tool. It's part of the retouch tool.[1] Which is very powerful and allows way more than just cloning. It is also non-destructive, like anything in DT.
DT has camera profiles, new cameras get added regularly.
You can also create them yourself if you have access to a color checker using a built-in tool.[2]
DT has tons of lens correction profiles. Basically anything you find in lensfun.
If your lens is missing, lensfun has a service where you send images and they send you the calibration data back and add it to to their database.[3]
I shoot (often exotic) manual glass most of the time.
If someone tells me DT is lacking in this regard it's a good indicator for me they have no clue what they are talking about or never used the app seriously.
UI: it could see improvement in terms of parameter exposure (no novice/simple mode) and ranges (some sliders go from 0..1, others from 0..100%) but otherwise?
What in the UI is prehistoric?
The catalog part of DT is also great. i.e. when your catalog is on a slow network or cloud drive DT can automatically cache RAWs locally and send back the XMPs with the edits only.
Caveat: I regularly get paid for photography work (it's not fulltime but give I worked professionally in blockbuster VFX for two decades I think I qualify).
I do all my processing in DT. If I have to do compositing work beyond that I export to Fusion.
[1] https://docs.darktable.org/usermanual/3.8/en/module-referenc...
[2] https://pixls.us/articles/profiling-a-camera-with-darktable-...
I agree with the GP that the UI makes it practically unusable. Prehistoric, and I'd be surprised if this can be used by anyone as-is. I'd take a look at the features, but while it's importing my catalog I can't open any subfolders to look at images already imported. Once I click open my top-level Pictures folder, it closes it again after half a second.
Adding: Even though my Fujifilm X-T4 is listed as supported on https://www.darktable.org/resources/camera-support/, and the preview images in grid mode appear, opening a single image displays two visually overlapping error messages about not being able to open the raw file. (One message is about switching to lighttable, the other about not being able to read white balance info. The image is not displayed.)
Firstly calling someone a liar basically shuts down all discussion in most cases and secondly after you have provided the proof you needn't demand it of them. You can instead wait for them to absorb the data you have provided.
Example:
> Darktable in fact has the features you mentioned and more. I enjoy using it for professional work myself so let me tell you a little bit about the features that make it competitive.
This would refute the position without directly engaging in negativity which is more likely to be read especially by poster but I think we are all a bit tired of people calling each other liars on the internet at this point.
Lens corrections are there and database has most used lenses.
