Celtx and CineLog get compared because both put a script editor and a stripboard in the same account, and both will take your Fountain file. Celtx has been doing the writing half for twenty years and has more accounts than anyone in this category, so for a lot of people it’s the first production tool they ever opened, in a film class. What I usually like to do is pick on the shape of the production instead of the feature list, because a writer with a script to finish and a crew of 25 with twelve days to shoot lose things in completely different places, and these two tools are built around those two shapes. So if you got here by searching for a Celtx alternative, or for apps like Celtx, this is the long answer.
One thing before we start. Everything in here was checked on November 2, 2026. The CineLog side against the app itself, version 1.5.6. The Celtx side against their own site, their blog and the store listings, and the prices against the price data their pricing page loads, because the page itself shows no numbers to anything that isn’t a browser. Celtx’s support center wouldn’t open for us at all, so where I quote it, I’m quoting what search engines show of it, and I’ve said so. Both tools ship changes every month, so read every number as correct on that date and check the pricing pages again before you decide. And on November 5, 2026 I added three more questions at the end, with no change to any price or any yes and no.
Short summary
CineLog is the pick when the script has to go into production with the same crew that’s going to shoot it. When the script is locked with page numbers that hold, and scene numbers too, and the revised pages go out on their color. When the call sheet has to reach each person as their own PDF with a status on it. When the crew is on phones and tablets with no signal, because Celtx removed its offline mode in 2023 and has no app on the iPhone. And when six people edit, because on CineLog the production pays once and nobody buys a seat.
Celtx is a writing suite first. The screenplay, the AV script and the stageplay editors are on every plan, including the free one, the revision mode on Writer Pro does the real things, letters on inserted scenes, an omit button, the standard colors and asterisks on print, and there’s a storyboard with a pencil in it, a beat sheet and a read-through. The production tools, the breakdown, the stripboard, the day out of days, the shot list and the call sheets, come as an add-on on the writer plans and as part of the Team plan, and they’re priced per seat.
Those two paragraphs are the article. Everything below is the reason for it.
Let’s put a real production on the table
So we’re not talking in the abstract, let’s invent one. Let’s call it Harbor. It’s a scripted feature, about 90 pages, twelve shooting days, a crew of 25. Four locations, and two of them are out of town where phones drop to one bar. Six people need to change things in the plan. That’s the director, the first AD, the DP, the producer, the script supervisor and the production designer. The other nineteen need to get a call sheet every night and open it in the morning. We’ll come back to Harbor in every section, because the numbers only mean something on a real crew.
When CineLog is the pick
| Production shape | Why CineLog |
|---|---|
| A scripted shoot of two to twenty days, like Harbor | Script, breakdown, strips, shot list and call sheets are one chain, and the whole crew is on it for one price. |
| A script that keeps changing after the lock | Locked scene numbers and pages, A-pages, OMITTED scenes, asterisks and a revised-pages-only PDF, with a scene-by-scene diff when the new draft comes in. |
| A crew on phones and tablets where the signal drops | Native apps on iOS and Android with the whole project on the device, editable for up to seven days offline. |
| A call sheet that has to be confirmed by morning | A personal PDF per person by email, with delivered, opened, confirmed and bounced on every name. |
| Six editors on one production | No seats. On Celtx, six people with the production tools is six seats on Team. |
Head to head
Prices are month to month in US dollars, checked November 2, 2026. Both are cheaper on an annual plan, Celtx by 25%.
| Celtx | CineLog | |
|---|---|---|
| Script editor | Yes, screenplay, AV and stageplay on every plan | Yes |
| Script import | Fountain, .fdx, Celtx, Word, RTF, text, text-based PDF | .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF, text, with a diff on re-import |
| New draft of the script | Import appends to the end of the existing script | Scene-by-scene diff, breakdown and shot list survive |
| Locked pages and revision colors | Scene lock with letters and an omit button, colors, asterisks on print, current revisions only (Writer Pro and up), page lock not documented | Yes, scene and page lock, A-pages, omitted scenes, revised-pages-only export |
| Breakdown | Yes, highlight text into the catalog, characters auto-tagged (add-on or Team) | Yes, tagged from the script text, cast numbered for you |
| Stripboard | Yes, generated from the script, end-of-day strips, day breaks, a day out of days (add-on or Team) | Yes, with day breaks, a boneyard, scene splits and a board PDF, no day out of days report yet |
| Shot list | Yes, compiled per shoot day from shot-tagged text (Writer Pro and up) | Yes, in script order and per production day, seventeen columns plus your own |
| Storyboards | Yes, with markup and sketching (Writer Pro and up) | Yes, several frames per shot, no drawing tool |
| Call sheets | Yes, built from script, schedule and catalog, sent as a PDF by email (add-on or Team) | Yes, from the schedule day, with weather, sun times, hospital and address lookup |
| Tracking | Not documented | Delivered, opened, confirmed, bounced, per person |
| AV script | Yes, on every plan | Yes, with a client review link |
| Budget and sides | Yes (add-on or Team) | No |
| Works offline | No, removed in 2023 | Yes, up to seven days |
| Native apps | Browser, a reduced Windows and Android app, no iPhone, iPad or Mac app | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, plus the browser |
| Who pays | Per seat, readers and editors without the paid tools are free | One subscription, collaborators are free |
| Entry price | Free, 1 project, Writer $14.99, Writer Pro $24.99, Team $59.99 for three seats | Free plan, then $15 a month |
Six things I compare, in order
There are six things I compare when I look at tools like these, and those are the script and its revisions, the breakdown and the schedule, the shot list and the storyboards, the call sheet, where you can actually use the thing, and who pays. I go in that order because that’s the order a scripted production moves in. Everybody weighs these differently, so if the writing is 80% of your job, skip to that section and stay there, because that’s Celtx’s section.
The script and its revisions
The first thing is the script, because on a scripted production the script is where every other document starts, and this is the section where Celtx is at home.
Celtx writes. The screenplay editor is on the free plan with presence-aware co-writing and anchored comments, and it imports Fountain, .fdx, its own format, Word, RTF, plain text and text-based PDF. The revision mode on Writer Pro and up does the real production things on the scene side. Scene 1 stays scene 1, an inserted scene becomes 1A, a cut scene goes through an Omit button, each revision gets a name and a color starting with Blue, the asterisks appear on the changed lines when you print, and there’s a print option for the current revisions only. What their pages don’t describe is a page lock. There’s no A-page, so when a revision runs long, the pages after it renumber. And when a new draft comes in from outside, the import appends it to the bottom of the script you have. There’s no scene-by-scene comparison.
CineLog has a full editor too, and it imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF and plain text. The part I lean on is what happens on the second import, because a scripted production gets new pages every week. CineLog shows the new draft as a diff against what you already have, scene by scene, and you accept what changed. It doesn’t wipe your breakdown and your shot list to make room for the new file. And once the script is locked, it locks both numbers. A new scene between 12 and 13 becomes 12A, a new page after 16 becomes 16A, and a cut scene prints as OMITTED and keeps its number for good. Every revision round gets its color, the changed lines get their asterisks in the margin, and you can export only the revised pages on that color, because that’s what goes out to the crew on a Tuesday night. What CineLog doesn’t have is a beat sheet, a stageplay format or a read-through.
So for Harbor, where the script gets locked about two weeks before day one and then revised every few days, both hand the AD the pink pages. CineLog hands them over with the page numbers still true, and the breakdown still attached to the scenes it was on.
The breakdown and the schedule
Now that the script is in, the next thing is the breakdown and the schedule, and on Celtx this is where the plan starts to matter.
Celtx breaks down by highlighting text in the script and tagging it as a production asset, which lands in the catalog and on the stripboard, and it tags the characters for you by default, with a character number you can set in the catalog and show on the strips. The stripboard generates from the script, you drag the strips, an end-of-day strip closes each day, the colors follow interior and exterior and the time of day, banners exist, and a day-breaks tool places the breaks every so many pages or eighths. The day out of days prints from the same data, with the one-line schedule and the sides next to it. To shoot a scene over two days, you duplicate the strip. All of that is an add-on with an unpublished price on Writer and Writer Pro, and it’s included on Team.
CineLog does the breakdown by selecting text in the script and picking one of twelve categories, and it marks the page with the underline, the circle, the asterisk and the box that people know from paper breakdowns. The thing I like most is what happens with cast. CineLog tags every character on every line they speak, gives each one a numbered talent slot, and that number sits on the strip and lands in the cast grid on the call sheet. You tag once. It shows up everywhere. The stripboard has day breaks, a boneyard for the scenes you haven’t placed yet, the standard strip colors, and it lets you split a scene across two days, because that’s how real days go. A finished day flows straight into that day’s call sheet, and the board exports as a PDF. What CineLog doesn’t print yet is the day out of days report, and it has no sides and no budget.
For Harbor, twelve days and 25 people, both boards do the job and Celtx prints the day out of days. On CineLog, every tool is on every plan, including the free one, so the question of which add-on the AD is on never comes up.
Shot lists and storyboards
Now that the days are laid out, the next thing is the shot list, and this is where the two feel different in the hand.
Celtx builds a shot by shot-tagging a line of the script, with size, frame, angle, movement and runtime on each shot, from presets or your own, and an image on it. Then it compiles a shot list for each shoot day from the schedule, and prints it. The storyboard is the part I’d point a director at, because it has a pencil. Panels sit in sequences synced to the script, you upload an image or sketch one from scratch, you mark it up, and the update in October 2026 added aspect ratios, version history and playback. Both come with Writer Pro and up, and as an add-on on Writer.
CineLog runs two shot lists off the same shots, a linear one in script order and one per production day, with seventeen default columns, your own columns on top, and your own dropdown values for shot type, angle, lens and movement. You can populate the first pass of the list from the script and then reorder by drag, whole scenes at a time. The Cast & Crew column shows the cast by the same numbers the schedule uses, so one look tells you who’s in the shot. Each shot holds several storyboard frames, and the shot list PDF prints the frames next to the rows. What CineLog doesn’t have is a drawing tool. You bring the frames in as images, from a sketch, a photo or a previs render.
So on this section, Celtx draws and CineLog doesn’t, and CineLog gives the shot list its own columns and several frames per shot, and Celtx doesn’t. For Harbor, the DP wants the shot list on an iPad at the location scout, and the scout has no signal. That’s CineLog, and I’ll get to why in a minute.
Call sheets
The next thing is the call sheet, and this is the document the whole crew judges the tool by, because it’s the only part nineteen of our 25 people will ever see.
Celtx builds the sheet from the script, the schedule and the catalog, and it starts on day one of your shoot. It fills the cast and the crew, it pulls the weather from a forecast, the sunrise and the sunset fill once the locations are tagged on the map, and the basecamp block has a place for the parking and the nearest hospital. Then the distribution tool pre-selects the cast and crew emails and sends a PDF, with no login needed on the other end. Their how-to lists “track confirmations and revisions” as a step, and I couldn’t find a page that says how, so I’m not going to tell you it does or doesn’t. What I can tell you is that no page shows a per-person status.
CineLog’s call sheet pulls the day from the stripboard and the shot list, so the schedule block is a live copy of the day and not a re-typed one, and the cast grid carries the numbers the breakdown gave the cast. It fills the weather and the sunrise and sunset from the location and the date, it carries the nearest hospital and the parking you saved on each location, and it autocompletes the addresses. It sends a personal PDF to each person by email, and for every person you see delivered, opened, confirmed or bounced. And the night before day five, the sheet for day five starts from what day four already knew, because most productions shoot the same place several days in a row, and re-typing the parking notes every night is the part that wears an AD down by week two.
So both build the sheet from the schedule, and both fill the weather and the sun. For Harbor, the difference is the morning after. On CineLog the AD knows by seven which three people haven’t opened their sheet.
Where you can actually use it
Now that we’ve gone through the documents, the next thing is where you can open them, and this is the one people skip until day three.
Celtx runs in a browser, and their own free-plan guide says so: the editor needs an internet connection, and the only way to work offline is to export a PDF. The offline mode they used to have was switched off on September 19, 2023, and their support page says scripts can no longer be taken offline. There’s an app called Celtx Screenplay for Windows and Android, with fewer features than the browser, and it hasn’t been updated on Android since October 2024. There’s no iPhone or iPad app, the old one is gone from the App Store, and there’s no Mac app.
CineLog is a native app on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, and it also runs in a browser at app.cinelog.com. Every device keeps a local copy of the project, so the shot list, the script and the call sheets open with no signal at all. You can work offline for up to seven days after you’ve signed in, and when the connection comes back, your changes and everyone else’s merge in the background.
For me, for example, this is the one that decides it, because I’ve never been on a location where the signal was good in every room. On Harbor, two of the four locations are out of town. The DP scouts them with the shot list open on an iPad. The AD walks the stone-walled house with the schedule open on a phone and moves tomorrow’s first scene to the afternoon, right there. With a browser-only tool, that’s a PDF you printed the night before, and PDFs don’t update.
Pricing, and who pays for the crew
And the last thing is the money, and the key here isn’t the first number on the pricing page. It’s what the number becomes once you put the real crew on it. It’s all about who pays for the person.
Celtx has a free plan with one seat, one project and the three editors. Writer is $14.99 a month with three projects. Writer Pro is $24.99 with unlimited projects, the revision mode, the storyboard and the shot list. On both, the breakdown, the schedule, the call sheets and the budget are an add-on, and the price of the add-on isn’t on the pricing page. Team includes the production tools and is priced per seat, graduated: the first seat is $29.99, seats two to five are $15 each, and seats six and up are $13, so three seats is $59.99 a month and six is about $103. Annual billing is 25% off. People you invite to read or edit a script don’t need a paid plan, and you can invite as many as you like. People who need the paid tools on your plan are a seat.
CineLog has a free plan with one project, every tool, offline mode, and two collaborators. Filmmaker is $15 a month with three projects and twenty collaborators. Production Company is $40 with ten projects and fifty collaborators. Studio is $90 with thirty projects and a hundred collaborators. There are no seats and no add-ons. The people you invite make a free account and get view or edit rights on the project, based on what you give them, and one subscription unlocks the app on every platform.
So let’s put Harbor on it. Six editors who need the production tools, nineteen readers, one project.
| Tool | Plan for Harbor | Month to month |
|---|---|---|
| Celtx | Team, six seats | $102.99, or about $77 billed yearly |
| CineLog | Production Company, all 25 on the project | $40 |
That’s not a small difference, and it’s not because CineLog is cheap. It’s because Celtx charges for the person, and CineLog charges for the production. A crew changes every week. A production doesn’t. This may sound like I’m stacking the deck, but the per-seat model is the honest reason people end up sharing one login on set, and one shared login is how a shot list gets overwritten at six in the morning.
What neither of them does
A quick word on what both leave out, because it’s the reason every production I’ve been on still had a spreadsheet open.
Text delivery. Neither sends the call sheet by SMS. Both send a PDF by email.
Post. Both stop at wrap. Review, approval and delivery are a separate tool and a separate bill.
A page lock on Celtx, and a pencil on CineLog. Each one has the thing the other doesn’t, and I’ve said where.
A quick exercise before you pick
So here’s a quick exercise before you move on to a trial.
First, figure out where the writing stops and the production starts. If the script is the whole job for the next six months, Celtx was built for that. If the script is going to a crew in six weeks, read on.
Second, count the people who will change the plan, and leave out the people who only read it. Then price them as Celtx Team seats, $29.99 for the first, $15 for the next four, $13 after that. That’s your real monthly number. On CineLog the number to multiply is zero.
Third, check the signal at each location before you sign up for anything. Stand in the room where you’ll shoot, open a web page on your phone, and see what happens. If it doesn’t load, a browser tool is a printout on that day.
The bottom line
Celtx is the writing suite with the most accounts in the business, and its revision mode, its AV editor and its storyboard pencil are real. CineLog is the pick for the scripted shoot with a real crew, because it locks the pages as well as the scenes, it puts every tool on every plan, every person gets their own call sheet with a status on it, and the whole project works on any device in the basement too. That’s Celtx vs CineLog.
Questions people ask
Is CineLog an alternative to Celtx?
For the production side, yes. The chain from script to breakdown to strips to call sheet is the same job, and CineLog adds page lock, a scene-by-scene import diff, per-person delivery tracking, native apps and offline work, with every tool on every plan. For a writer who wants a beat sheet, a stageplay format and a storyboard pencil, those are Celtx’s.
Which one is cheaper for a crew of 25?
CineLog, at $40 a month on Production Company with everyone on the project. Celtx Team with six seats is about $103 a month, or about $77 billed yearly, and the readers are free on both.
Which one works offline on set?
Only CineLog. Celtx switched its offline mode off in September 2023, and its free-plan guide says to export a PDF.
Can I bring my script in from .fdx or Fountain?
Both take both. CineLog adds RTF and shows re-imports as a diff so your breakdown survives the new draft. Celtx appends an import to the end of the script you have.
Which one handles colored revision pages?
Both, on the scene side. Celtx letters inserted scenes, omits with a button, colors each revision and prints asterisks on Writer Pro and up. CineLog also locks pages, so you get A-pages and a revised-pages-only export.
Which one has a drawing tool for storyboards?
Celtx. You can sketch a panel from scratch and mark up an image. CineLog holds several image frames per shot and doesn’t draw.
Which one prints a day out of days?
Celtx, with the production add-on or on Team. CineLog doesn’t print the report yet.
Do my collaborators need to pay?
On CineLog, no. They make a free account and get the rights you give them. On Celtx, people who read or edit a script are free, and people who need the paid production tools on your plan are a seat, graduated from $29.99 to $13 a month each.
Which one runs as a real app on a phone or tablet?
CineLog is native on iOS and Android with the whole project on the device. Celtx has a reduced app for Windows and Android and no iPhone, iPad or Mac app.
Can I switch from Celtx to CineLog?
Yes. Export the script from Celtx as .fdx or Fountain and import it. The Celtx catalog doesn’t travel, so the breakdown is re-tagged on the page with the cast done for you, and cast and crew contacts come in from a spreadsheet with a column mapping. Later drafts show as a scene-by-scene diff.
Can Celtx generate shooting schedules, stripboards and budgets from the script breakdown without switching tools?
Yes for the schedule and the stripboard, on Team, or with the production add-on on Writer and Writer Pro, whose price isn’t on the pricing page. The stripboard generates from the script, the breakdown lands on it, the day out of days prints from the same data, and the budget comes with the same tools rather than off the breakdown. It runs in the browser, with no offline mode since September 2023. CineLog runs the chain from script to call sheet offline with no seats, and it has no budget tool.
Which one has a mobile app for on-set cast and crew coordination?
CineLog. It’s native on iOS and Android with the whole project on the device, so the script, the shot list and the call sheet open with or without signal, and the people with edit rights change them on set. Celtx has no iPhone or iPad app. It has an app called Celtx Screenplay for Windows and Android, with fewer features than the browser, and it hasn’t been updated on Android since October 2024.
Which one handles several schedule changes in one day and gets the new call sheet out?
Both build the new sheet from the schedule, and the difference is where you’re standing. On CineLog the AD moves the day on the board from a phone, even with no signal, and the call sheet follows it. Back in range, you send again, and every send is tracked per person. On Celtx the schedule and the call sheets run in the browser, on Team or with the add-on, so the change and the new sheet wait for a connection.
To recap
To recap, in this article we talked about picking on production shape instead of feature count, we walked six things in order, the script and its revisions, the breakdown and the schedule, the shot list and the storyboards, the call sheet, where you can use it, and who pays, and we put a twelve-day, 25-person feature on both price lists. Celtx is the writer’s suite with production tools on the paid tiers. CineLog is the production’s tool with a writing room inside it, every tool on every plan, the whole crew on it for one price, and the plan editable where the signal isn’t.
If you want to see the CineLog chain for yourself, the Free plan is one project with every tool, and you make the account inside the app after you download it. So put your own Harbor on it, and then move on to the part that matters, which is the shoot.