Here’s the Deal

Final Draft vs Trelby

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When comparing Final Draft vs Trelby, the Slant community recommends Trelby for most people. In the question“What is the best screenwriting software?” Trelby is ranked 3rd while Final Draft is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Trelby is:

Trelby is available absolutely free for Windows and Linux with source code available on [GitHub](https://github.com/oskusalerma/trelby).

Specs

Auto-completeYes

Hollywood formattingYes

NotesYes

Real-time online collaborationYes

ReportsYes

Revision trackingYes

BreakdownYes

Color codingYes

Index card viewYes

Outline viewYes

Page lockYes

PlatformsWindows OSX

Auto-completeYes

Hollywood formattingYes

NotesYes

Real-time online collaborationNo

ReportsYes

Revision trackingNo

Character name database200k names

Comparison highlightsYes

Export.pdf; .html; .rtf; .fdx; .fountain screenplay formatted text

Import.fdx; .celtx; .fountain; .astx; .fadein; screenplay formatted text

PlatformWindows Linux

Spell-checkingYes

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What is the best screenwriting software?

Pros

Pro
Collabowriter allows two people to work on the same document at the same time

Pro
Industry standard

Pro
Built-in collaboration tools

Pro
Text-to-speech support

Pro
Lots of templates

Final Draft comes bundled with over 100 screenplay, teleplay and stageplay example templates.

Pro
Available on Windows, OS X and iOS

Final Draft is available on Windows and OS X with companion applications available for the iPad and iPhone.

Pro
Free, open source and cross-platform

Trelby is available absolutely free for Windows and Linux with source code available on GitHub.

Pro
Final Draft compatible

Can import and export .fdx files.

Pro
Can highlight differences between different versions of a script

Pro
Has a character name database

A character name database with 200k+ names from various countries is built into Trelby.

Ad
Cons

Con
Expensive

The OS X and Windows versions of the software cost $249.

Con
Updates require payment

Con
Companion apps for iOS have to be purchased separately

Con
No built-in way of sharing documents

Con
Lacks support for AV multi-col templates

Con
Dated UI

Con
English only

Trelby supports the ISO-8859-1 character set, any characters that are outside of that set are not supported.

Con
No longer maintained

Right now in 2018, most recent updates are from three or more years ago. This creates problems installing the .deb releases on certain linux distros, and means it probably wont be getting long term support anymore.