OpenDraft — Free Screenwriting Software
Free, secure, multi platform alternative to Final Draft
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OpenDraft — Free Screenwriting Software - Privecy first screenwriting software that's free forever

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Free, open-source screenwriting software. A modern alternative to Final Draft with real-time collaboration, beat boards, and version control. No subscription. No tracking. Available on all platforms including iOS and Android

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Hi Product Hunt 👋 I write screenplays. I also run a tech business. For years the writing half of that meant paying Final Draft $250 for software that hadn't meaningfully changed in a decade — no Linux, no real collaboration, and my scripts sitting on someone else's server under terms they can rewrite whenever they like. So OpenDraft is the tool I wanted: **free forever, MIT-licensed, and it runs everywhere.** Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and straight in the browser with no account. What's in it: - **Industry-standard formatting** — scene headings, action, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions, with autocomplete for characters and locations - **Beat board** — drag-and-drop index cards for planning before you write - **Real-time collaboration** — invite a co-writer by link, live cursors, edit or view-only - **Version history** — check in drafts, diff them side by side, restore any of them - **Import/export** — Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain, Fade In, PDF, Word. Nothing is locked in, including on the way out - **Actually offline** — no tracking, no analytics, no telemetry. Your script never leaves your machine unless you invite someone into it Now the part that usually gets the questions: **I didn't write a single line of the code.** All of it was written by Claude Code. My technical background shaped the architecture — Yjs CRDTs over WebSockets for collaboration, Tauri 2 instead of Electron so the desktop app is ~35 MB rather than 200+, Git under the hood (via Dulwich) so version history is real version control — but every line was implemented by AI while I acted as the product owner and the first user. Being the target user is what made it work: I could tell within a page whether the formatting felt right. It's at v0.23.2 now, in both app stores, and the whole thing is MIT on GitHub. There's a plugin architecture that a commercial Pro tier will eventually plug into, but the open-source app is the full writing tool — nothing is held back to sell you later. Try it without installing anything: **** I'll be here all day. Happy to get into the CRDT-plus-screenplay-formatting problem, the Tauri build, what AI-built development actually feels like at this scale, or what's still rough — and things are still rough in places, so tell me where.