I've been getting into photography lately too and running into the same question. There's no way I'm getting an adobe subscription. But I'm not sure what tools do I want to pick up instead. Apple Photos has gotten me pretty far, but I'm hitting the limits of what it can do. And my photo library is getting pretty big now - big enough that I want some software to manage where my photos live as well.
Played with Nitro this morning and compared my edits to those that came out of Lightroom and my camper manufacture’s RAW software and am very happy with the results. It has a user friendly interface, which I prefer to Lightroom’s, and I love that it’s a one time purchase. Thanks for the recommendation