Ranking Free SCRIVENER ALTERNATIVES 

Note: For Papyrus Author I figured out how to set the background to the distraction free writing mode into the colors I want. So that is possible. But still no upload for your own background images and no Dark Mode. Also, in Papyrus you only get 4 characters that you can add to the character section in the free plan :( Just adding this here because that wasn't clear enough in the video. But check out the full Papyrus Author Review if you're interested in this software and want to get more clarity on what the free version can and can not do. 😀

Great video. A clear overview of each software.

Thank you for the review, very thorough yet not one wasted word- super helpful!

A lot of very useful information and comparisons. Thanks

thanks alot. now i can dive deep into the world of writing.

I'm still in my notebook and sticky notes phase of organization but I have accumulated a lot of scenes of writing in OpenOffice. However, it's coming to the point that I have so many important side characters and things going I need something a bit more efficient. The Wavemaker and Papyrus both look extremely useful and I plan to give both of them a look based on your overviews here. I look forward to the more in depth reviews coming up. Thanks for your insight and look at these software options.

excellent. your organizational skills are very good.

Thankyou so much the video was very helpful

Good video. I personally use Evernote to do most of my writing, organizing, and world building in. There is no dedicated word processor which sucks but I just export it out into google docs to go over again. I have been looking at sudowrite which looks interesting. Looking forward to your next video.

Papyrus is like Scrivener, produced in Disneyland. Scatterbrained app. I just wrote three novels and published them in Vellum. Vellum is brilliant. I’ve been a Scrivener user and beta tester since the very first release of the application and I regret that the producer of the application does not seem to listen to writers. Scrivener is like a wood duck - it bobs up and down in the one spot year after year without any significant writerly useful upgrades.

I would put yWriter somewhere on a top ten list. Scrivener is still King of the Hill.

Great video! Thanks for mentioning Wavemaker it was also my second choice for a new writing software I really liked the card system that it had àsince I'm used to using a similar system. I also didn't like QuolWriter for the similar issues you had with it. My pick was Libre Office Writer it's a Word alternative but it also has a navigator feature which works similar to the different folder/chapter layout that Scrivener has but each chapter won't be in a separate folder. It will have the similar page layout to word but you can use the navigator to jump between chapters I'm stillà getting use to it but I like it so far. Another one that also is recommended is Ywriter. I haven't used it but it's also a free alternative.

I'm liking wavemaker, but also fortelling right now, but I do often default back to the simplicity of ywriter.

I want to mention a couple of other free options: the main one is SmartEdit Writer, which looks similar to Scrivener, and the other is Bibisco, which has a free version with limitations. For me, the most important thing is that the software lets me have multiple panes open at once, so I can have my writing in one pane, and notes on plot, character, location, etc., open beside it. As far as I can tell, only Scrivener does this. However, I have not yet got to grips with Scrivener due to its overly complicated and obscurely labeled interface... Regarding Wavemaker, I found their website poorly designed and unhelpful. All the information is in blog entries, rather than organised by subject.

Joplin is the true king when it comes to writing I mean you can throw everything at it and this also plugins that you could add to it to add a lot of the features that has been mentioned here and more. Just Joplin is also free and open source unbelievable a great piece of software once you understand how they really use it.

Regarding the shadiness of the open source apps: actually the fact that they are open source is what makes them transparent as opposite of shady. The code is open for anyone to see any "shady" things that might be hidden by propietary code. In that sense, you can actually feel safer when using FOSS than when using propietary software.

Do you use Notion? Notion is *not* a word processor but more of a "second brain" that'll change your life by orginizing it. However, people *are* using it as writing software. I combine it with my Scrivener and--BOOM--oh my God! It is making me into a writing machine. And, yes, it's free. (Notion; not Scrivener 😛)

Yeah... i think you like shingeki no kyojin a little bit

Why would anyone go through all these efforts to NOT USE the best writing system; Scrivener. For any professional writer, or anyone aspiring to be one, I strongly advocate for Scrivener!

Wait why would you be suspicious about open source being legit? If anything, it should be the other way around :)

Papyrus is definetely not free ...