Do you have a high res screen? Lightroom performance sucks. I've got a 4k screen and hoped my GTX 1070 would help. Nope... I'm 100% SSD now. Nope...
LR is slow and keeps getting slower. I am thinking about jumping ship over to: https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/
The photography plan with Adobe is great for 10 bucks per month. Comes with Lightroom and Photoshop. A great alternative to Ps is Affinity Photo. Also
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html
This is great -- I was already planning to buy On1 Photo Raw 2019 at the end my trial (not sure I'll cancel my Adobe subscription, but On1 seems like a very capable Lightroom replacement that doesn't require a subscription.)
But I was on their e-mail list during the trial, and they e-mailed a special link that you can get it for $79.99 (instead of $99.99 like you'd find if you went to their website directly) and then another $10 off with code BLACKFRIDAY so I just got a permanent license for only $69.99 and have registered my copy with it.
Apple's Photos app will not do this, so you will need other software if you want to have photos sorted in folders rather than in a database.
I have a mac laptop, but also a powerful PC, and a NAS that stores my photo library in a folder structure.
To access it on both my computers I mount the photo folder from my NAS and use ON1 Photo RAW which has a license model(in contrast to Adobe Lightroom that has subscription) that I can run on 5 computers, Windows on Mac, for a single, flat fee. Works great.
Finished edits can be exported in whatever format I need, and even a smaller copy that I can store to my Photo Library to have synced on my mobile units.
Have you looked at ON 1 Photo Raw?
https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/
It has DAM and, IIRC, layered editing. I have a license and used to use it frequently in the past, esp for Fuji Raw files with I felt ON1 handled better than LR. But, on the whole, I found ON1 to be a bit slow when compared to LR. In the end I stopped using it as I found I kept going back to LR (more through familiarity than the quality of ON1). I must stress that ON 1 isn't a bad piece of software, it probably has more features that LR, I just didn't find it a good fit for me. However, I do have one gripe about ON 1, as a company, it's their marketing. I appreciate everyone need to make a buck but, I found them to be a bit too persistent, I felt that they we're always pushing you to upgrade or use their cloud storage service. The obvious solution was to un-subscribe from all of their marketing emails - which I did.
I appreciate that this post sounds like if damned ON 1 with faint praise, but it's an inexpensive, well crafted and fully featured photo editing application that's definitely worth consideration if you looking for an LR alternative.
I've looked at all the alternatives suggested so far, and find it surprising that OnOne hasn't been mentioend yet. I think it offers the most similar functionality.
https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/
I have no association with this company, other than owning a license to their program. I still prefer Lightroom better.
I only seen/heard of hobbyist and instagramer/influencers using. Kind of like Luminar. But pros are stuck on Photoshop and a CC account is standard for every to have at agencies.
Not saying it's a bad or good application. Probably has benefits as it's growing popularity. But to turn giant ship you need lots of time/energy. People know Photoshop and expect it I believe. But, in all honesty I need p-shop 2-3 times a year on set to extract an overlay. It's different for everyone. But with "creatives" for agencies getting younger and being introduced to other software I could see a new generation of them being more familiar with alternatives like it. As long as you can open/edit a PSD without issues I don't see why it wouldn't be acceptable.
OnOne has been putting in lots of work to make their software better and in some way I like it. https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/
I'd like to see a DAM/Raw editor from them to help challenge C1pro and lightroom.
I don't mind sticking to LR6 for now if I need to, as it works with all of my existing gear. However, I figure it's worth revisiting this just to see if the landscape has changed (or if LR CC has actually improved to the point where it's worth spending money on), as I assume a bunch of other people are stuck on LR6 as well, and don't want to switch to CC.
As for the edits themselves, the reason I'm asking is because I saw https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/switch/, which claims to be able to migrate most things from Lightroom, and I figured if it's worthwhile and actually works, someone who had also been stuck in the same boat would probably respond.
I am in a very similar situation to you. Have done corporate freelance work for over a year and am transitioning away to another career stream and personal documentary projects. I had Adobe CC on a student plan but this month it lapses into a full rate which I don't feel I will be taking advantage of fully enough.
While not everyone's cup of tea, I am a big FCPX, Motion, & Compressor user now. I feel with a lot of the enhancements over the past few years, the workflow really is hard to beat if you don't mind thinking a bit non-traditionally. Also I have found performance to be a lot more reliable on older Mac hardware as Premiere was rather crashy for me on a 2011 loaded iMac. There are very few professional limitations that FCPX can't deliver on, and if that is your concern- you are probably going to be wanting Avid anyways. There are also plenty of great plugins and new extensions that can really customize FCPX to do what you want it to do.
In regards to Photoshop, that is still my qualm too. I have downloaded a trial of ON1 Photo Raw which looks promising for a Lightroom/partial photoshop replacement. They have a good sale on until the end of February. https://www.on1.com/products/photo-raw/