If hinting makes the fonts "too thin", your display gamma is probably misconfigured. That kind of artifact is a common side-effect of graphical operations being performed in the wrong gamma space.
I don't see how that would affect a screenshot—the difference is clearly visible in screenshots. Furthermore the differences between Mac, Linux, and Window font rendering are widely discussed on the internet. I think I just prefer the way that Apple chose to render fonts.
Yes, there is an issue with freetype where the gamma is different between otf and ttf fonts. otf will apply the gamma automatically, but for ttf you have to force stem darkening at the current time.
This blog post seems to lay out the tradeoff between, at least, Windows and Mac font rendering: https://blog.typekit.com/2010/10/15/type-rendering-operating...