When comparing Trelby vs Scrivener, the Slant community recommends Trelby for most people. In the question“What is the best screenwriting software?” Trelby is ranked 3rd while Scrivener is ranked 7th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Almost every parameter, from window layout to text-revision colo(u)r can be tweaked to your style
Pro Keeps everything together: notes, drafts, references, links
Pro Offers free trial
The trial is good for 30 days of actual use, not the typical 30 days from install date.
Cons
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Con No longer maintained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.
Con Can't use bold, italic, underline
Con No online collaboration capabilities
Con Lacks revision tracking
Con No OSX version
Trelby is only available on Windows and Linux.
Con Mediocre UI
UI should be better.