Hi desmobob,
I have darktable on my PC and play with it some, its very capable and very searchable for help on how to do things. I would rate the learning curve somewhat high this is the free side I have read with Darktable/Gimp add on you can stitch for free (I have not tried that).
What I really wanted to offer you is to take a look at Affinity Photo, the current price is still very low and is not a subscription (54.99 windows or Mac). I also use NX studio and like it as well, Affinity works more like photo shop (on point with the advanced items NX does not do). They have a great library of video tutorials from them and users, I have even used some photo shop tutorials with much success. Affinity offers free updates for the life of the software, this will help when new cameras come out and new RAW file types come.
To your question I used only Affinity to stitch the 5 handheld photos together for the resent "panoramic" weekly challenge. I think it did a great job. When you do a panoramic stitch you wind up with a "wave" top and bottom edge, instead of cropping the shot to eliminate that I used a web learned set of steps to allow Affinity to "fill" in those areas the best it could.
Affinity does among many other things - panoramic - focus stacking - layers - watermarking - astrophotography stacks - use of user made macros - for a reasonable price. There is no "cataloging" I use NX for that and then open what I want to in Affinity.
It takes learning but very worthwhile, they have a free trial so you can see what you think (I am not affiliated in any way with them). No harder than adjusting a desmodromic rocker arm (hope they do not scare you
, I'm just a fellow bike nut).
