Why Drafter
Open it and write. Drafter™ is free, and there’s no catch: no sign-up, no sign-in, no licence key, no activation, ever. It’s ready the moment the page loads or the app starts.
New to Drafter, or deciding whether to trust it? What is Drafter? starts at the beginning, for writers, for productions, and for technical people. This page has the full comparison.
Free, with no catch
- Free, really. No price, no trial, no subscription, no “free tier” with the good parts locked away, no ads, and nothing collected about you to sell. Drafter isn’t a business: it’s made by one writer, for writers, and given away. The production features professionals need are in it too.
- Instant. drafter.dev opens straight into a script, and the desktop app starts the same way. No installer is needed to begin, and no setup.
- Open. The code is MIT-licensed and on GitHub, and your script is a plain
.fountaintext file you own, so a lapsed licence can never lock you out of your own work. - Private. No cookies, no tracking of you, and no telemetry. Your script never leaves your device: Drafter has no server that could receive it. See Privacy.
- Works offline. Once it has loaded, Drafter runs with no connection, on a plane or a train.
- No forced updates. The web app updates when you reload, or the next time you open it after closing every Drafter tab. The desktop app asks GitHub once at start-up whether there’s a new version, never installs or restarts by itself, and can be told not to check at all.
- Built for working writers, free. Production features, the kind a script needs once it’s greenlit, come to the free app in v0.27.0: colored revision sets with marks in the margin, locked pages (12A) and scene numbers, OMITTED scenes, revised pages to send out, a breakdown report, and sides for actors. There is no paid version, and there won’t be one.
- Plays well with Final Draft. It opens and saves Final Draft (
.fdx) files, so you can trade scripts with anyone who uses it.
No login, ever
There is no account to make, and nothing to sign in to every time you start. Close it, open it again tomorrow, and you’re back in your script. There is no licence key to type in and nothing to activate, on the web or in the desktop app.
The big features
All of them are free.
- Industry-standard pages. Screenplay and stage-play formatting laid out live as you type, with page counts you can trust, and a PDF that looks like what readers, agents, and productions expect.
- Final Draft files in and out. Open the
.fdxa producer sends and hand one back; Highland, Fade In, Fountain, and Markdown open too. - Structure tools. Outline, index cards, the Structure strip, scene colors, synopses, notes with readers’ names, setups and payoffs, and running times by scene and act.
- See the script. Scaffold follows your cursor and shows who is in the scene; the Stats tab has each character’s screen time, dialogue share, and a character-by-scene grid.
- Every draft kept. Version history, Compare with a GitHub-style view of what changed, Show changes on the pages, and the history of one scene. Numbered drafts, each kept for good, and Cuts, which keeps everything you cut to read, copy, or put back.
- Production, coming free in v0.27.0. Colored revision sets with marks in the margin, locked pages (12A) and scene numbers (5A), OMITTED scenes, revised pages to send out, a breakdown report, and sides.
- Writing help. Focus mode, typewriter scrolling, daily goals, sprints, writing stats, and its own offline spellcheck.
- Everywhere you write. A web app, desktop apps for Windows and Linux (and a Mac build), and it works on a phone, offline.
How Drafter compares
What each app’s maker says on its own site, as of October 2026, at list prices (sales come and go). ✓ means it’s there; paid means a higher plan; ? means the maker doesn’t say. Drafter’s not-yet-shipped features show the version they’re planned for, never a ✓. Corrections are welcome: open an issue.
| What | Drafter | Final Draft 13 | WriterDuet | Fade In | Highland Pro | Arc Studio | Celtx |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, forever | $249.99 once, or $99.99/yr | from $9.99/mo | $99.95 once | $59.99/yr | from $69/yr | from $11.24/mo |
| Free version | Everything | 5-day trial | 3 projects | Watermarked demo | 30-day trial | 2 scripts, watermark | 1 project |
| Account or sign-in | Never | Store sign-in, 2 computers | Yes | Registration key | App Store | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | yes MIT | no | no | no | no | no | no |
| Your data | Stays on your device; no tracking | On your computer | Cloud | On your computer | On your computer | Cloud | Cloud |
| Mac / Windows / Linux | build it / yes / yes | yes / yes / no | yes / yes / yes | yes / yes / yes | yes / no / no | yes / yes / web | web; Mac app |
| Web, and phones | yes web, works on phones | iPhone app | yes | mobile apps | iPhone, iPad | yes | yes web |
| Works fully offline | yes | yes | paid plans | yes | ? | yes | no |
| Final Draft (.fdx) open / save | yes / yes | yes / yes | yes / yes | yes / yes | yes / yes | yes / yes | open / ? |
| Fountain open / save | yes / yes (its own format) | as plain text only | yes / yes | open / ? | yes / yes | yes / yes | yes / yes |
| PDF import | planned, free | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Outline and index cards | yes | yes | yes | partial | partial | paid outline | yes |
| Notes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | paid |
| Version history and Compare | yes / yes | yes / ? | yes / partial | yes / yes | ? | paid | paid |
| Character and scene stats | yes | yes reports | paid reports | yes reports | partial | yes reports | paid |
| Revision colors and marks | v0.27.0, free | yes | paid | yes | yes | paid | paid |
| Locked pages and scene numbers, OMITTED | v0.27.0, free | yes | paid | yes | ? | yes | ? |
| Breakdown report and sides | v0.27.0, free | yes / ? | yes / partial | yes / ? | no | partial | paid |
| Stage play | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | ? | yes |
| TV templates | Phase 3, free | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | paid |
| Spellcheck | yes offline | ? | ? | yes | ? | yes | ? |
| Focus mode, goals, sprints | yes | yes | yes | partial | yes | yes | ? |
| Read aloud (table read) | Phase 4, free | yes | paid | yes | ? | paid credits | ? |
| Dark mode | yes | yes | yes | page colors | yes | yes | page colors |
| Real-time co-writing | later, free | each writer needs a licence | inviter pays | yes | no | paid | paid |
Sources: each maker’s own pricing, features, and help pages (Final Draft, WriterDuet, Fade In, Quote-Unquote Apps for Highland Pro, Arc Studio, Celtx), read on 31 October 2026. Every app here is good at what it does; Drafter’s difference is that all of it is free, open, and never asks you to sign in.
Made by
Made by Christopher Schweda (cschweda), who also builds metaincognita: open-source casino simulators that show the math behind the games.
Drafter™ and the Drafter logo are trademarks of Christopher Schweda. The MIT licence covers the code; it doesn’t grant use of the name or logo.