Looking for a bargain? – Check out the best tech deals in Australia

The Best Writing Apps for 2024

Working on your novel? Hoping to finish that movie script? Look no further for the best apps for writers of all types.

Related:

While we'd love to tell you there is one best writing app to rule them all, it simply isn't true. The best writing app is the one that helps you with the unique challenges of whatever you're writing. Do you need an app that has scene cards for mapping out a screenplay, or do you want one that reduces distractions and helps you focus on getting words on the page? The best app also supports your method of writing. Do you like to write in pieces that you can move around while revising? Do you need to keep track of copious footnotes or even reference images? Do you publish directly to a website? Hey, you might even be best off sticking with something you already know, like Microsoft Word or Google Docs—though those apps don't have some of the special features you get in a dedicated writing app.

No matter what type of writer you are, you won’t have trouble finding an excellent writing app that speaks to you. Below are descriptions of the best writing apps based on our independent testing, as well as guidelines for how much you might expect to spend. Separately, some writers are leaning on artificial intelligence to help them come up with ideas, and if that's your jam, see our list of the best generative AI chatbots.


You Can Trust Our Reviews

Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. Read our editorial mission & see how we test.

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

  • Final Draft (for Mac)

    Final Draft (for Mac)

    Best for Screenwriting
    4.5 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    Final Draft is the industry standard for professionals who write or make movies and television shows. It is a mature product with excellent features.

    Who It's For

    Final Draft is the best writing software for anyone in the screenwriting business. It has all the tools you need to get the script right from both story and technical perspectives. While it does have features and templates for other kinds of writing, such as graphic novels, Final Draft is best for writing meant for the screen.

    • Pros

      • Well-tailored for screenwriters
      • Powerful tools for both writing scenes and crafting the larger story
      • Plenty of view options
      • Offers a variety of industry-standard templates
      • Good collaboration features
    • Cons

      • Best autosave option is once every three minutes
      • Expensive
  • Scrivener (new)

    Scrivener (new)

    Best for Genre Templates
    4.5 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    For long-form works, Scrivener is the best writing app on the market. It gives you what you need to research, compose, reorganize, and edit your writing for a low price.

    Who It's For

    Scrivener is best for people who write novels, nonfiction books, dissertations, and other kinds of long-form writing. It's inexpensive enough for professionals and aspiring professionals alike.

    • Pros

      • Plentiful tools for writing and revising
      • Ample collection of templates
      • Competitive price
      • Multiple installs allowed
      • Available for Mac, Windows, and iOS
    • Cons

      • No web app
      • No native collaboration features
  • Ulysses (for Mac)

    Ulysses (for Mac)

    Best for Distraction-Free Writing
    4.5 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    If you're looking for a distraction-free writing environment that doesn't skimp on features, Ulysses is the app to get.

    Who It's For

    Ulysses is the best writing app for writers who don't want the distractions of a word processor. It pares down, eliminates, or hides menu options to keep the interface simple and minimal. Many long-form and short-form writers alike take to the app easily, though it doesn't coach you through your draft the way some other writing apps do. Note that it's only available for Apple devices.

    • Pros

      • Beautiful and tidy interface
      • Ample features
      • Excellent selection of views and distraction-free modes
      • Tracks writing goals
      • Can publish directly to WordPress, Medium
    • Cons

      • Only available on Apple devices
      • Expensive subscription-only pricing
  • Fade In

    Fade In

    Best for Screenwriting on a Budget
    4.0 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    Fade In is a capable screenwriting app with most of the features scriptwriters need. We picked it because it's an excellent and more affordable alternative to Final Draft.

    Who It's For

    Fade In is priced for aspiring screenwriters. Its low, one-time cost should appeal to anyone who wants to produce professionally formatted scripts on a budget.

    • Pros

      • Rich with features, including real-time collaboration
      • Competitively priced as a one-time fee with free upgrades
      • Supports industry-standard formatting conventions
    • Cons

      • Autosaves every two minutes at best
      • PDF import tool could use improvements
    Learn MoreFade In Review
  • iA Writer (for Mac)

    iA Writer (for Mac)

    Best for Online Writing (Medium, WordPress)
    4.0 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    Taking minimalism to the extreme, iA Writer may have the fewest built-in distractions of any writing app. It's relatively inexpensive, too.

    Who It's For

    iA Writer is an excellent choice for bloggers and short-form writers. It's also a good choice if you prefer to write in Markdown language.

    • Pros

      • Distraction-free design
      • Supports Markdown formatting
      • Can export directly to Medium and WordPress
      • Inexpensive
    • Cons

      • No templates
      • Few tools for organizing and arranging files
  • Storyist (for Mac)

    Storyist (for Mac)

    Best for Word Processor Power
    4.0 Excellent

    Why We Picked It

    Storyist for Mac is a dedicated writing app with the power of a word processor. This app has formatting options galore, including style sheets, which help writers create consistently formatted words.

    Who It's For

    Storyist gives long-form writers all the tools they need, including a corkboard view and folders for plot notes and character development.

    • Pros

      • Clean, clear interface
      • Includes tools for storyboarding, outlining, character sheets
      • Good exporting and importing options
    • Cons

      • No collaboration features
      • Mediocre auto-save functionality
      • Few templates
      • Apple-only
  • Novelize

    Novelize

    Best for Web-Based Novel Writing
    3.5 Good

    Why We Picked It

    Novelize is one of the few writing apps that works on the web. It's easy to use and capable enough to handle young adult series, novellas, and other simple pieces with plenty of styling tools.

    Who It's For

    Novelize is for creative writers who specifically don't want downloadable writing software and are working on short to medium-length works.

    • Pros

      • Platform-independent web app
      • Syncs and backs up your work effortlessly
      • Minimal learning curve
      • Offers useful tools for novelists
    • Cons

      • Depends on third-party cloud storage
      • No offline functionality
      • No dedicated mobile apps
      • Does not support collaboration or co-authoring
      • Pricey
    Learn MoreNovelize Review
  • Script Studio

    Script Studio

    Best for Referencing Films While Writing
    3.5 Good

    Why We Picked It

    Script Studio’s standout feature is its inclusion of popular movie scripts you can use as models for your own. The app has a decent set of features for helping you draft, plot, organize, and write.

    Who It's For

    Script Studio is best for screenplay and teleplay writers (script is in its name, after all), but you can also use it to compose novels and other works.

    • Pros

      • Attractive and organized interface
      • Includes helpful sample scripts
      • Available for macOS and Windows
    • Cons

      • No co-authoring support
      • Lacks beat boards, daily writing goals, and other features
      • No mobile apps
    Get It Now
  • yWriter

    yWriter

    Best for Scene-Based Writing
    3.5 Good

    Why We Picked It

    yWriter is unique because it encourages you to compose small scenes of a novel rather than chapters because scenes are more manageable. It also has dozens of places to store details about your work, and compiles all this metadata into useful charts and tables.

    Who It's For

    The free and stats-heavy yWriter is ideal for writers who crave organization and data about their work. If you're looking for a distraction-free experience, look elsewhere. It's available as a Windows app, whereas many writing apps are for Mac only.

    • Pros

      • Free
      • Highly structured interface
      • Rich tools for story and character development
      • Plentiful stats
    • Cons

      • Doesn't include screenwriting tools or templates
      • macOS version still in beta
      • No collaboration options
      • Unusual interface requires learning curve
    Learn MoreyWriter Review

Buying Guide: The Best Writing Apps for 2024


How Much Do Writing Apps Cost?

Apps for writers tend to be less expensive than other kinds of software. Many sell for a one-time fee, although a few require a subscription. In addition to the cost of the desktop app, you should also factor in the fee for a service's mobile app, which is often sold separately.

There are three types of writing software in this story:

  1. Low-cost, lightweight apps that cost around $30 (you can find cheaper apps, but they tend not to be very good).
  2. Writing apps for long-form writers (such as book authors) that cost around $50–$75 to own outright or $50 to $60 per year when sold as a subscription.
  3. Screenwriting software, which costs anywhere between $70 and $250.

Some writing apps include storage, but many don't. To make sure you never lose your work, you should back up your work early and often. A cloud storage service like Dropbox or iCloud is often the most convenient solution. The good news is that pages of text don't take up much space, so you may be able to store a few works in your existing cloud storage account without paying for more space. Just keep in mind that you might eventually have to pay more for storage.

(Credit: Final Draft/PCMag)

What's the Best App for Screenwriting?

As a genre, screenwriting has unique requirements. Scripts for movies, television, and the stage must clearly distinguish between action, scene descriptions, spoken dialogue, and so forth. Scripts do this through formatting. For example, lines of dialogue are always centered on the page, while the name of the character who speaks them is always centered and in all caps directly above the lines. The rules of formatting are standardized so that all the people involved in creating the final product—actors, film crew, editors, directors, among others—can understand the script and do their jobs.

Because the formatting for screenwriting is exceedingly precise, it helps tremendously when a writing app applies the correct formatting automatically. Most professional screenwriters use Final Draft, which is the industry standard. In addition to suggesting the correct formatting, Final Draft has a beat board where you can map out the beats of your story and view them on a timeline above your script as you write.

Fade In is a great, low-cost alternative to Final Draft, while Script Studio offers sample scripts to help you structure your work.

(Credit: Literature and Latte)

What's the Best Writing App for Long-Form Works?

Book authors spend a lot of their time simply organizing their manuscripts. Whether it's for fiction or nonfiction works, many authors put an incredible amount of effort into outlining their chapters and sections, moving them around, and trying to structure everything into one cohesive piece. The same can be said for other types of long-form works, such as dissertations, graphic novels, and so forth.

We have two favorite apps for long-form writers. One is Scrivener, which has templates and tools for a variety of genres and forms. The other is Ulysses, which is better for writers who find themselves distracted by toolbars, menus, and options; it has a great distraction-free mode.

(Credit: Ulysses)

Writing for Medium, WordPress Blogs, and More

Book authors and screenwriters aren't the only types of writers, of course. Many writers create shorter pieces that they publish directly online, often without ever passing through the hands of an editor, agent, publisher, or movie producer. If you're publishing on Medium or WordPress, it's handy to have a writing app that can seamlessly export your work to those platforms.

Ulysses and iA Writer both integrate with Medium and WordPress. Like Ulysses, iA Writer is a distraction-free writing app, but it's much more pared-down. It has some neat functions, such as text transclusion, which allows you to use inline commands to import and order sections, files, and images. In other words, you can make a document that essentially says, "Pull in all the text from this file, then place this image after it, and then pull in the text of this other file." Using this method, the text of your document could be all of four sentences long and yet produce a final piece that, when exported, is 25 pages long.


Distraction-Free Apps That Support Markdown

If you're after minimalism, getting an app with a distraction-free mode or view is a great place to start. You may also want to write in Markdown language.

Markdown is a lightweight set of codes that you use to apply formatting instead of using the rich-text formatting options that are common in word processors. If you've ever typed asterisks or double asterisks (depending on which app you're using) around a word to make it bold *like this*, that's Markdown. The idea is that by removing menu options and toolbars for formatting, you won't get distracted by them, and instead, you'll focus on your writing.

Ulysses, iA Writer, and Byword all support Markdown natively and focus on delivering you a distraction-free interface. A few other apps allow you to write in Markdown, but they don't necessarily emphasize it or minimize other kinds of distractions.


Additional Tools to Improve Your Writing

Some writers need a little bit of help to make their words flow or to smooth out word choice when they aren't native speakers of the language. In such instances, tools such as Hemingway Editor (a tool that steers you toward brevity), AI keyboards, or Grammarly might help. Grammarly, in particular, is popular among non-native English speakers because it's very good at hunting down typos and repetitive phrases. It also makes suggestions for word choices that might not be quite right.

Grammarly isn't a writer's app in the sense that the other apps listed above are, as it doesn't have any tools for organizing your writing or ideas. But you can use it in tandem with another writing app. Final Draft even now comes with Grammarly support. If your chosen app doesn't integrate directly with Grammarly, however, you can use the Grammarly browser extension for web-based tools.


What's the Best Writing App?

The best writing app for you is the one that works for the type of writing you do and meets your unique preferences. Do you need a writing app that works on both Windows and macOS? Do you need one that is specific to writing screenplays? Do you need something that minimizes distractions? The range of software for writers is impressive, so there are plenty of options.

Finally, if you decide that a dedicated writing tool just isn't for you and you'd rather use a plain old word processor, see our list of the top office suites to help you out there as well.

Compare SpecsThe Best Writing Apps for 2024
Our Pick
Editor's Rating
Editors' Choice
4.5 Excellent
Review
Editors' Choice
4.5 Excellent
Review
Editors' Choice
4.5 Excellent
Review
4.0 Excellent
Review
4.0 Excellent
Review
4.0 Excellent
Review
3.5 Good
Review
3.5 Good
Review
3.5 Good
Review
Price Is
$249.99$59.99$39.99 per Year$79.95$29.99$59.00$65 per Year$199.95Free
Mac App
Windows App
iOS App
Android App
Web App
Collaboration Features
Library
Supports Markdown
Screenplay Formats

About Jill Duffy