Screenwriting (Final Draft, Beat, Trelby, Fountain)

Screenwriting tools enforce industry-standard formatting (12pt Courier, exact margins, sluglines, dialogue blocks) and produce .fdx (Final Draft XML) for production teams. The 2024-26 story: Beat has emerged as a genuinely great free Mac-native Fountain editor; Trelby and KIT Scenarist keep Linux / Win covered for free; Final Draft still owns Hollywood. For comics / graphic novel scripts see writing-comics-graphic-novels.

The industry standard (paid)

• ★ ★ Final Draft — paid; ~$250+ one-time (sales bring it lower); Win / Mac / iPad. The de-facto tool for working TV / film writers; .fdx is the production format every studio expects. Industry capture is real — even writers who hate it own a copy.
• Movie Magic Screenwriter — paid; the other pro tool; smaller user base but loved by users; long history.
• Highland 2 — paid one-time; Mac-only; from John August (writer of Big Fish, Aladdin); cleaner / more writerly than Final Draft; reads + writes Fountain natively. ★ for non-Hollywood-track screenwriters on Mac.
• WriterDuet — paid + free (3-script free tier); web-based; ★ for collaborative / real-time co-writing; popular with writers' rooms and remote duos.
• Celtx — paid + free; was the OSS pioneer; pivoted to film-production management; the writing tool is still usable on the free tier but no longer the focus.
• Arc Studio Pro — paid; modern; outline + beats + script in one.

Free / OSS

• ★ ★ Beat — MIT; free OSS; Mac-only; the modern Fountain-native screenwriting app; clean UI, plot tagging, revision modes. Has grown quickly 2024-26 into a real Highland 2 alternative. The default for any Mac user not paying for Final Draft.
  • https://github.com/lmparppei/Beat
• ★ Trelby — GPL; free OSS; cross-platform (Win / Linux first); old-school but rock-solid; PDF export; the Linux / Win pick.
  • https://github.com/trelbyapp/trelby
• ★ KIT Scenarist — GPL; free OSS; cross-platform; outline + research + script all in one; popular outside the US.
  • https://github.com/dimkanovikov/kitscenarist
• Fade In — paid (~$80) but worth flagging; cross-platform; arguably the best Final Draft alternative; not free but a one-time buy. (Listed here because it competes with the OSS tier on price.)

The Fountain plain-text format

• ★ Fountain — open standard; plain-text screenwriting markup (think markdown for screenplays). Supported by Beat, Highland 2, Trelby, KIT Scenarist, WriterDuet, Final Draft (import). Future-proof: your script outlives any app.
  • https://fountain.io/
• screenplain / fountain-tools — free OSS CLIs; Fountain → PDF / .fdx.

Browser-based / mobile

• WriterDuet — paid + free; browser; collaboration default.
• JotterPad — paid + free; Android-leaning; Fountain support.
• Slugline 2 — paid; Mac / iOS; Fountain-native, beautifully designed.
• Scrivener — paid; has a screenplay mode but most screenwriters use a dedicated tool. See writing-longform-apps.

Production / next-step tools

• StudioBinder — paid + free; pre-production scheduling, shot lists, call sheets.
• Celtx (paid) — same niche post-pivot.
• Showbie / WriterSolo — niche niche tools.

Format conversions

• .fountain ↔ .fdx — every modern tool reads / writes both; use Fountain as your source of truth for portability.
• .celtx is dead — convert via Trelby or open in Celtx and export.

Pick this if…

• Writers' room / studio submission: Final Draft (you don't have a choice).
• Mac + serious + free: Beat (★ ★).
• Mac + paying once: Highland 2 or Fade In.
• Win / Linux + free: Trelby or KIT Scenarist.
• Real-time co-writing: WriterDuet.
• Future-proof source of truth: write in Fountain regardless of the editor.