I have used Ansel for many months before giving up and switching to Lightroom (blasphemous, I know). Ansel is still very much alpha software. My experience was it's slow, buggy, and lacking usability. Lightroom just works for the most part, Darktable and Ansel don't. I hope Ansel can succeed despite having just 1 developer.
Also, I think the angle Aurelien is taking with Ansel is peculiar. He's really hard on the colour science aspects. I read somewhere Ansel is targeted towards computer novices yet colour science experts. I wonder if a significant user base exists there. Do most pro photographers have degrees in colour science? Plus photography at the end of the day is an art for most people. It's telling when I can achieve my creative goals in a few clicks in Lightroom vs hours in Darktable/Ansel...
I momentarily used Darktable, and IIRC there were fewer bugs. Performance was about the same for image processing. I guess these things will come out in the wash as Ansel is developed (although maybe very slowly because of the whole 1 man thing).
Also, I think the angle Aurelien is taking with Ansel is peculiar. He's really hard on the colour science aspects. I read somewhere Ansel is targeted towards computer novices yet colour science experts. I wonder if a significant user base exists there. Do most pro photographers have degrees in colour science? Plus photography at the end of the day is an art for most people. It's telling when I can achieve my creative goals in a few clicks in Lightroom vs hours in Darktable/Ansel...