Cinapse and CineLog get compared because both put a stripboard in a browser, both break the script down into strips with numbered cast on them, both let several people work the board at once, and both keep working offline. So on the schedule, the overlap is real. What I usually like to do is pick on the shape of the production instead of the feature list, because an AD department crossboarding an episodic show across two units and a crew of 25 shooting one script in twelve days 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 Cinapse alternative, or for apps like Cinapse, 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 Cinapse side against their site, all of their help center, their monthly release posts, their pricing page and its PDF, and Wrapbook’s own posts about the acquisition. Cinapse changed its pricing twice in the last year, so read every number as correct on that date and check again before you decide.
Short summary
CineLog is the pick when the board is one link in a chain the crew runs together. When the script is written, locked and revised in the same project and the breakdown is tagged on the page. When the DP’s shot list runs in day order next to the board with the cast numbers on it. When the day becomes a call sheet with a status next to each name, which Cinapse hands to other tools. When the crew is on native apps on every platform. And when the price is a flat monthly plan instead of a meter on shoot days and seats.
Cinapse is a scheduler built by ADs, in a browser, and it’s the board on some serious television. Scenes come in from a Final Draft file, a numbered PDF, a Scriptation breakdown or a Movie Magic 6 file, each becomes a breakdown sheet with auto-numbered cast, and the strips go on a board with day breaks, banners, a scrapyard, weather and sun times on the day banner, multiple units on the Studio plan, and a day out of days with the full status codes on every plan. Several people edit the board live with roles per person, it works offline on every plan, and since December 2025 it belongs to Wrapbook, which says the schedule will feed payroll and accounts payable in time.
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 in one project. Cinapse is the board, and hands the sheet to another tool. |
| A script that keeps changing after the lock | A full editor with locked pages, A-pages, OMITTED scenes and colored revisions. Cinapse imports the script and assigns revision colors to the board. |
| A DP who runs the day from a shot list | A shot list per production day with cast numbers on the rows. Cinapse has no shot list. |
| Six editors and nineteen readers | Free collaborators with view or edit rights per tool. On Cinapse, seats are included per plan and extra editors and viewers are metered by the day. |
| A crew on phones | Native apps on iOS and Android with the whole project on the device. Cinapse is a browser app tested on laptops and 11-inch tablets. |
Head to head
Prices are in US dollars, checked November 2, 2026.
| Cinapse | CineLog | |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Imports .fdx, a numbered PDF, Scriptation JSON and Movie Magic 6 files, re-import updates matching scenes, no editor, “script view coming soon” | Editor with locked pages and revision colors, imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF, text with a diff on re-import |
| Revisions | Revision colors assigned to the board, white, blue, pink and on, no page lock | Scene and page lock, A-pages, OMITTED scenes, standard colors, asterisks, revised-pages-only export |
| Breakdown | Sheets per scene, elements typed under categories or imported as tags, an opt-in AI pass, auto-numbered cast | Tagged from the script text into twelve categories, cast numbered for you |
| Stripboard | Yes, strips, day breaks, banners, unit breaks, scrapyard, weather and sun times on the day banner, multiple units on Studio, color palettes on two axes, no scene split | Yes, day breaks, boneyard, strip colors, scene splits across days, board PDF |
| Day out of days | Yes, on every plan, with the full status codes | No report yet |
| Reports | Shooting schedule, one-liner, DOOD, breakdown, calendar, list, category by day, as PDF and CSV | Board PDF, breakdown PDFs, shot list PDF, call sheet PDF |
| Shot list and storyboards | No shot list, reference images on breakdown sheets | Shot list per production day, several frames per shot |
| Call sheets | ”Cinapse doesn’t currently create or manage call sheets”, exports to SetHero or Call Sheet Commander | Yes, from the schedule day, sent per person with tracking |
| AV script | No | Yes, with a client review link |
| Collaboration | Real-time, roles Owner, Editor, Breakdown Sheet Editor, Viewer, none on Starter | Real-time, free collaborators, roles per tool |
| Works offline | Yes, on every plan, in the browser’s local storage, with a warning not to close the browser | Yes, every tool, every device, up to seven days |
| Native apps | Browser only, laptops and desktops first, tablets of 11 inches or more | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, plus the browser |
| Price | Starter free for evaluation, Professional $49.99 a month, $29.99 locked for sign-ups until December 1, Independent $19.99 per shoot day with four seats, Studio $49.99 per unit per day with ten seats, extra editors $3.99 a day, viewers $0.99 a day | Free plan, then $15, $40 or $90 a month, collaborators free |
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. With Cinapse, the second section is the heart of it.
The script and its revisions
The first thing is the script, because on a scripted production the script is where every other document starts.
Cinapse imports the script, and it imports it from more places than most schedulers: a Final Draft file, a PDF with scene numbers, a Scriptation breakdown with its tags, a Movie Magic 6 schedule, and since this spring an optional pass that reads the PDF and proposes the elements. When a new draft comes in, the re-import updates the scenes that match by number and makes new strips only where there’s no match, which is the right behavior. What Cinapse doesn’t have is the script itself. There’s no editor, a script view is on its coming-soon list, and the revision colors it tracks are the board’s, white, blue, pink and on for each version of the schedule, not the pages.
CineLog has a full editor, 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 does the real production thing. 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.
So for Harbor, where the script gets locked about two weeks before day one and then revised every few days, both keep the strips attached through a new draft. CineLog also makes the pink pages, in the same project the board lives in.
The breakdown and the schedule
Now that the script is in, the next thing is the breakdown and the schedule, and this is Cinapse’s home ground, so let’s give it its due.
Cinapse’s breakdown sheet is the real one. Cast, background, stunts, props, effects, makeup and hair, art, labor, locations and whatever categories you add, typed in under each heading or brought in from the tags, with the cast numbered for you by how often they appear. The board has strips, day breaks that know their date, text banners, start and end of day banners, unit breaks, a scrapyard that shares strips across boards so an episodic show crossboards, a weather banner with the sunrise and the sunset for the location, and on Studio several units with their own day counts, colored on two axes so unit and episode read at a glance. The day out of days builds itself with the full set of codes, on every plan including the free one, color-coded since September. Seven reports print as PDF or CSV. And several people edit the same board at once, with roles down to the breakdown sheet. What the board doesn’t do is split one scene across two days as one scene, and it reads Movie Magic 6 files but doesn’t write them.
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, in the shot list’s cast column and 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 have is the day out of days report, the multi-unit boards, the seven reports or the Movie Magic import.
For Harbor, one unit and twelve days, both boards do the job, and Cinapse prints the day out of days. If Harbor were two units and eight episodes, that’s what Cinapse was built for, and I’m not going to argue with it. CineLog’s board is tied to a shot list and a call sheet, which is the next two sections.
Shot lists and storyboards
Now that the days are laid out, the next thing is the shot list, and this one is short.
Cinapse has no shot list, and the words don’t appear anywhere in its help or its site. Storyboards exist as reference images you attach to a breakdown sheet, on every plan.
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.
For Harbor, the DP wants the shot list on an iPad at the location scout, in tomorrow’s order, with the cast numbers from the board on it. That’s CineLog, because on Cinapse the DP’s list and the AD’s board never meet.
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.
Cinapse doesn’t make call sheets, and its help center says so in those words. The day’s schedule goes out as a CSV to SetHero, where the changes don’t sync back, or as a file to Call Sheet Commander, which builds a sheet per shoot day. Both are other subscriptions.
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.
For Harbor, that’s twelve sheets. On CineLog they come off the board. On Cinapse they come off a CSV, in a second tool, and the AD exports again every time the board changes.
Where you can actually use it
Now that we’ve gone through the documents, the next thing is where you can open them, and here Cinapse does better than most browser tools.
Cinapse runs in Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox on a Mac or a PC, and on iPads and tablets of eleven inches or more, with their own note that they optimize for laptops and desktops first. The desktop app is the web app installed from the browser. There’s no native app on either store, and the terms speak of a downloadable app only as something that may come. Offline is real and on every plan: the board keeps working, the changes save in the browser’s own storage and merge when you reconnect, with the warning not to close the browser while you’re offline and no stated limit on how long.
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. The people you invite get view or edit rights per tool.
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, and I’ve never had the AD walk it with a laptop. On Harbor, 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. Cinapse gives you that on a laptop or a large tablet with the browser left open. CineLog gives you that on the phone in the AD’s pocket.
Pricing, and who pays for the crew
And the last thing is the money, and here Cinapse meters things CineLog doesn’t.
Cinapse’s Starter plan is free, for evaluation by its own description: one board, three report exports, offline, no collaboration. Professional, the personal plan, is $49.99 a month or $499.99 a year, with a rate of $29.99 a month locked for two years for anyone who signs up before December 1, 2026, and it includes one collaborator who must also subscribe. The production plans are metered. Independent is $19.99 per shoot day, with prep not billed and four seats included. Studio is $49.99 per unit per shoot day with ten seats, multiple units and custom permissions. An extra editor is $3.99 a day on Independent or $4.99 per unit per day on Studio, and an extra viewer is $0.99 a day. Students get it free. Cinapse calls itself the first scheduling platform to charge productions directly, and the meter is the point.
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 meter. 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, nineteen readers, one project, twelve shoot days.
| Tool | Plan for Harbor | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Cinapse | Independent at $19.99 a shoot day with four seats, two extra editors at $3.99 a day, nineteen viewers at $0.99 a day if they need to look | About $240 for the shoot, plus about $96 for the editors, plus up to about $226 for the viewers, for the board |
| CineLog | Production Company, all 25 on the project | $40 a month, for the chain from script to call sheet |
That’s not a small difference, and it’s not because CineLog is cheap. It’s because Cinapse meters the day and the seat, and CineLog charges for the production. A crew changes every week. A production doesn’t.
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.
The budget. Neither has one. Wrapbook says Cinapse’s board will feed hot costs and payroll in time, and on the day I checked the integration was marked coming soon.
Text delivery. Neither sends anything by SMS. Cinapse sends nothing, CineLog sends by email.
Post. Both stop at wrap. Review, approval and delivery are a separate tool and a separate bill.
A quick exercise before you pick
So here’s a quick exercise before you move on to a trial.
First, count the units and the episodes. If the answer is more than one of either, Cinapse’s crossboarding scrapyard and multi-unit day counts are the reason ADs use it, and CineLog doesn’t have them. If the answer is one and one, read on.
Second, write down where the call sheet will come from. If it’s a third tool that imports the board as a CSV, add that tool’s price and the export every time the board changes. On CineLog the sheet is the board.
Third, count the shoot days and the people, and run Cinapse’s meter on them. Then look at the CineLog plan with enough projects, which has nothing to multiply.
The bottom line
Cinapse is the board that ADs on episodic shows reach for, with a real breakdown sheet, a day out of days on every plan, crossboarding and offline in a browser. CineLog is the pick for the scripted shoot with a real crew, because the script, the board, the shot list and the call sheet are one project, every person gets their own sheet with a status on it, the whole crew is on it for one flat price, and it runs on a phone in the basement too. That’s Cinapse vs CineLog.
Questions people ask
Is CineLog an alternative to Cinapse?
For the breakdown and the board on a single-unit shoot, yes, and CineLog adds the script editor, the shot list and the call sheets around it. For a multi-unit or episodic schedule with a day out of days and crossboarding, that’s what Cinapse does and CineLog doesn’t.
Which one is cheaper for a crew of 25?
CineLog, at $40 a month on Production Company with everyone on the project. Cinapse’s Independent plan is $19.99 per shoot day with four seats, plus $3.99 a day per extra editor and $0.99 a day per extra viewer.
Which one works offline on set?
Both, in different ways. Cinapse keeps working offline on every plan in the browser’s local storage, as long as you don’t close the browser, with no stated limit. CineLog works offline on every device, including phones, for every tool, up to seven days, and merges everyone’s changes after.
Does Cinapse make call sheets?
No. Its help center says it doesn’t currently create or manage call sheets. It exports the day to SetHero as a CSV or to Call Sheet Commander as a file. CineLog builds the sheet from the schedule day and sends it per person with tracking.
Which one handles the script and its revisions?
CineLog writes, locks pages and scene numbers, colors revisions and exports the revised pages. Cinapse imports the script from Final Draft, a numbered PDF, Scriptation or Movie Magic 6, updates matching scenes on re-import, and assigns revision colors to the board.
Which one prints a day out of days?
Cinapse, on every plan, with the full status codes. CineLog doesn’t print the report yet.
Does Cinapse have a shot list?
No. CineLog runs a shot list in script order and per production day with the cast numbers from the board on it.
Do my collaborators need to pay?
On CineLog, no. They make a free account and get the rights you give them. On Cinapse, Starter has no collaboration, Professional’s one collaborator must also subscribe, and the production plans include four or ten seats with extra editors and viewers metered by the day.
Is Cinapse still sold on its own after Wrapbook bought it?
Yes. It has its own pricing and sign-up, and its About page says it continues to operate independently as part of Wrapbook. The Wrapbook integration was marked coming soon on the day I checked.
Can I switch from Cinapse to CineLog?
Yes. Bring the script into CineLog as .fdx or PDF and import your contacts from a spreadsheet. CineLog doesn’t read .cinapse files or Cinapse’s CSV reports, so the breakdown is re-tagged on the page, with the cast numbered for you, and the board is rebuilt by drag.
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. Cinapse is the AD’s board for episodic work, metered by the day and the seat. CineLog is the chain for the crew, from the first draft to the last call sheet, on any device, for one price.
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.