Adobe Lightroom Vs. Lightroom Classic: Which Is Best For You?

Since entering the software scene in 2007, Adobe Lightroom has become a staple for digital photographers looking to store and edit their pictures. But which Lightroom? In 2017, Adobe adapted to the growing prominence of mobile devices and operating systems by creating a new photo app called Lightroom CC, with the original Lightroom being renamed Lightroom Classic CC. Confusing things even more, the CC in both applications, which stands for "Creative Cloud," was eventually dropped, meaning that Lightroom is the newer app and the original Lightroom is the one called Lightroom Classic.

Why would Adobe risk the change? It comes down to workflow and the "Creative Cloud" aspect originally found in both new names. Lightroom is made to work seamlessly across multiple platforms, with users able to store and manipulate their photos in the cloud. Lightroom Classic is for photographers who traditionally use their desktop for all the pictures they keep locally on hard drives. Both apps serve the same purpose for their users, which is to import, save, view, organize, and edit digital photographs. (Photoshop, Adobe's other major photography app that has become its own verb to even non-photographers, is more focused on image manipulation and creation than the nondestructive Lightroom programs.) If you're trying to figure out whether Lightroom or Lightroom Classic is best for you, here's a breakdown of the biggest similarities and differences between the two.

For the first decade of its existence, Lightroom was desktop only, and it remains this way as Lightroom Classic. The name "Lightroom" itself calls back to the small, confined darkroom space photographers traditionally worked in to develop their film. Similarly, digital photographers who prefer the traditional method of working in a single space with a computer and all of their equipment physically within reach, can still use Lightroom Classic.

The newer Lightroom, or Lightroom CC, is based in the cloud and allows you to work across all major platforms, including desktop, web, phones, and tablets. This makes sense, considering the very reason a new Lightroom was created was to cater to an evolving digital landscape where more users are employing mobile platforms over desktop. Keep in mind that Lightroom on desktop is not the same as Lightroom Classic on desktop — they're just as different as Lightroom Classic is to Lightroom on an Android phone. Lightroom Mobile, which is the port used for Android and iOS phones, is technically the same as Lightroom, however, but it has slightly fewer features than Lightroom for iPad and other tablets, considering that tablets typically have more power and screen space to work with.

Many still prefer to store their most important files locally, on hard drives they can physically keep in their homes or offices, and this includes digital photographers. Because of the nature of Lightroom Classic's all-in-one approach, the originals of any photos stored or edited in the app are kept locally, either on the computer itself or on external hard drives. With Lightroom, the originals are kept in the cloud, and users can access them from their desktops, laptops, phones, or tablets, provided they have an internet connection.

As with storing any sort of file, there are pros and cons to keeping digital photographs on the cloud versus locally. Adobe is a major company and has fairly stable, secure servers, so it's unlikely your photos will be lost in an accident, but it's always a possibility. There's also the risk that someone could hack the servers and get access to your private photos. If you store your files locally and keep them offline, they're more secure, but they're also susceptible to corrupted hard drives, or could be lost or even damaged if something happens to your drive. Depending on how many photos you store, it may be easier (or more difficult) to keep in the cloud rather than on multiple hard drives, though with Lightroom Classic you won't be constantly uploading and downloading to access your photos.

Similar to mobile operating systems on traditional desktop operating systems, Lightroom is more intuitive and streamlined compared to Lightroom Classic. For the most part, both programs offer the same features, but they are laid out differently. For example, Lightroom Classic has a Camera Calibration panel that Lightroom lacks, but most of the features on that panel are included elsewhere in the latter app. Lightroom Classic is designed to be more hands-on, like driving stick versus using an automatic transmission.

This applies to how photos are organized on either program as well. Lightroom Classic users need to assign manual keywords to each of their photos, whereas Lightroom will automatically tag photos throughout the cloud library, and has an intelligent search function that can even use facial recognition. Backing up files is also simpler with Lightroom because they're automatically saved to the cloud, a feature not included with Lightroom Classic.

Adobe is still committed to using subscription pricing models, and it's currently impossible to purchase either Lightroom program once and own it forever. Subscribing to Lightroom costs $9.99 per month, though for the same price you can get both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography bundle. (You cannot currently subscribe to Lightroom Classic individually, only as part of the Creative Cloud Photography plan.)

You might think it makes sense to get the bundle since it's more programs for the same price, but if you plan to only use Lightroom and never use Lightroom Classic, then subscribing to it individually is the better option. That's because it comes with one terabyte of cloud storage, as opposed to only 20 GB storage with the CC Photography bundle. If you want one terabyte for that plan, the price jumps to $19.99 per month. You'll likely want to opt for more storage if you're not using Lightroom Classic, since it's cloud-based.

If you're concerned Lightroom Classic is a legacy program that will eventually be discontinued, you shouldn't be, at least for now. Even when Adobe created the new cloud-based app in 2017, its Product Management Director, Tom Hogarty, announced "We're not phasing out Lightroom Classic and remain committed to investing in Lightroom Classic in the future."

That philosophy hasn't changed since then. Adobe Photo Product Manager Sharad Mangalick told PetaPixel in 2022 that Lightroom and Lightroom Classic "were built to solve different needs" and that "there are no plans to do anything different ... They both have reasons for existing, and even new customers are making their choice." Since there are still digital photographers choosing to work more traditionally, there's no reason for Adobe to discontinue Lightroom Classic, just as the proliferation of mobile devices hasn't led to desktops and laptops being phased out. This may change sometime in the future, but for the time being, if you prefer to work in Lightroom Classic, you shouldn't be discouraged from subscribing to it. And since photos are stored locally with Lightroom Classic, you wouldn't lose any of your work anyway.