5 Best Free Alternatives to Final Draft [2025]

Arc Studio Pro is quickly becoming a go-to choice among aspiring and professional screenwriters, with a wide range of features that rival those of expensive industry standard software such as Final Draft. Arc Studio Pro provides all the tools necessary for creating professional quality scripts with an easy-to-use interface - all without having to break the bank.

It has become a favorite among independent filmmakers who need a straightforward and powerful tool for writing film and television scripts. Allowing for automatic script formatting, scene outlines, revision tracking, collaboration tools, commenting, and more, Arc Studio Pro is a powerful screenwriting tool.

The Desktop app is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Like Final Draft Mobile, Arc Studio Pro offers an iOS app so that you can write on a mobile app. Additionally, it can read and write final draft files (FDX), which means it's 100% compatible with Final Draft.

For a more in-depth comparison of Final Draft and Arc Studio, check out our detailed comparison of the two apps.

Whether you're a solo screenwriter or part of a writing team, consider trying out Writer Duet as your go-to writing tool. It's a user-friendly and totally free software that allows you to collaborate with other writers in real-time.

With easy-to-use features such as outlining, syncing capabilities, storyboarding, and drag-and-drop scripting, this software allows you to spend less time on technical setup and more time on perfecting the creative elements of your work.

You don't need to worry about servers, backing up files, or even setting passwords - Writer Duet does it all for you! Try it out today and see how much smoother the writing process can be.

StudioBinder is an all-in-one production toolkit that offers a number of apps via a single interface – the web browser. While StudioBinder's primary focus is as a script breakdown, scheduling, and call sheet management app, it also includes full-featured screenwriting software.

Because it is browser-based, you have everything synchronized for you in the cloud.

Highland 2 is the creation of John August, a very successful screenwriter with a ton of experience and the co-creator of the wonderful script notes podcast. It offers users many of the standard features you would expect from a screenwriting app, such as auto-formatting, outlining and a distraction-free interface.

Highland 2 has one of the simplest learning curves of any scriptwriting software on this list, making it a great choice for beginners. It also offers some very unique tools, such as the gender analysis tool that allows you to examine the ratio of male to female characters and lines of dialogue in your script.

Not only is Highland 2's user interface modern and intuitive, but it has powerful conversion capabilities to convert PDFs and Final Draft files into Highland projects so that you can import scripts from virtually any other screenwriting software.

Highland 2 is available as a free download from the Apple App Store.

Trelby, a free and open-source screenwriting app that is available for PC and Linux, might just be the perfect tool for you! This minimalist platform makes writing your story easier than ever before - from simple auto-complete features to compatibility with the latest versions of FDX and Fountain.

This application has everything you need to get started writing today. While it doesn't offer some of the more complex features, such as beat boards, outlining, or collaboration tools, it does provide a clean, simple interface that makes it easy to focus on the writing process.

If pain is your pleasure, then head on over to Google Docs and try your best to get started hacking your way through a script.

All joking aside, Google Docs is extremely powerful, and you can do a lot with that platform. But with all the options listed above, there's just no need to try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Use Google Docs to write and manage your standard Word documents, and use a dedicated screenplay writing app with advanced formatting tools for writing scripts.