FrameForge and CineLog get compared because both import a script, both turn scenes into shots with frames on them, and both print a shot list with the frames next to the rows. But FrameForge builds the set in 3D and looks through a camera with a real lens on it, and CineLog takes the frame you made and runs it through the schedule and the call sheet. So the overlap is one document in the middle. What I usually like to do is pick on the shape of the job instead of the feature list, because a DP testing whether a 24mm clears the doorway and a crew of 25 shooting twelve days lose things in completely different places. So if you got here by searching for a FrameForge alternative, or for apps like FrameForge, 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 FrameForge side against the company’s site, which now lives at storyboardsmarter.com, the price widgets the site loads, the version 4 release notes and all 275 articles of its knowledge base. Most of that knowledge base dates from 2017 and the product on sale is still version 4, so read every claim as being about the program you can buy today.
Short summary
CineLog is the pick when the shot has to run the day. When the shot list comes off the script in script order and in tomorrow’s order, with the cast numbers from the breakdown on every row. When it sits next to the stripboard and feeds the call sheet. When several people change the plan at once, from phones and tablets with no signal, because FrameForge runs one copy on one desktop and shares by printing. And when the crew needs the plan on a phone, which FrameForge has never made.
FrameForge is a previs program, and it’s been one since the 1990s. You build the set, place posable actors and props, choose a camera that matches a real one and a prime lens from a set, and the frame you see is optically what you’d get, with the focal length, the camera height and an overhead blueprint printed on the board. Pro adds grip equipment with collision detection, multiple lights, the sun for a real place and date, and a shooting order next to the story order. It runs on Windows and Mac, one machine at a time, as a one-time licence or a subscription, and it won a technical Emmy for saving productions money by testing shots before the day.
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 the crew runs together. FrameForge makes the boards and prints them. |
| A shot list in shooting order, per day | A shot list per production day with cast numbers on the rows. FrameForge’s Pro shooting order is a frame order, not a schedule. |
| A script that keeps changing after the lock | A full editor with locked pages, A-pages, OMITTED scenes and colored revisions. FrameForge imports a text export of the script and lines it to shots. |
| Six people changing the plan from anywhere | Real-time collaboration on native apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. FrameForge runs one copy at a time on a desktop. |
| A call sheet tonight | Built from the schedule day with weather, sun times and the hospital, sent per person with a status. FrameForge has none. |
Head to head
Prices are in US dollars from the site’s price widgets, checked November 2, 2026.
| FrameForge 4 | CineLog | |
|---|---|---|
| Script | Import as formatted text from Movie Magic Screenwriter, Final Draft or Celtx, blank sets per location, line the script to shots, no editor | Yes, editor with locked pages and revision colors, imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF, text with a diff on re-import |
| Breakdown and stripboard | No, a shooting order next to story order on Pro, and equipment reports per shot | Yes, tagged from the script text, cast numbered, stripboard with day breaks and scene splits |
| Shot list | Yes, exported with the boards, per story or shooting order, camera data list as RTF or tab-delimited | In script order and per production day, seventeen columns plus your own, populated from the script |
| Frames | 3D renders with real optics, camera height, blueprint, no drawing in the app | Several image frames per shot, no drawing |
| Previs | 3D sets, posable actors, 1,150-plus objects, lens sets and grip gear on Pro, sun position, tweened animatics to video, green screen | No |
| Call sheets and AV script | No | Yes, with per-person tracking and a client review link |
| Sharing | Print, PDF, images, HTML pages you host yourself | Client review link on the AV script, roles per tool for the crew |
| Collaboration | None, one copy runs at a time | Real-time |
| Works offline | Yes, internet only for registration | Yes, every tool, every device, up to seven days |
| Native apps | Windows and Mac, no phone, tablet or browser | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, plus the browser |
| Price | Core $498 once or $12.99 a month billed yearly, Pro $799 once or $24.99 a month billed yearly, per machine, 14-day trial, education prices | 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 FrameForge, the third section is most of the comparison.
The script and its revisions
The first thing is the script, because on a scripted production the script is where every other document starts.
FrameForge imports the script as a formatted text export from Movie Magic Screenwriter, Final Draft or Celtx, with RTF as the fallback that loses the page breaks, and once it’s in, it can make a blank set for every location and let you line the script to shots the way a script supervisor does. The script shows in a window while you work. What FrameForge doesn’t do is edit the script, lock a page, color a revision or compare a new draft, and it doesn’t claim to. The company’s own screenwriting heritage is Movie Magic Screenwriter, which it built and sold on years ago.
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.
So for Harbor, where the script gets locked about two weeks before day one and then revised every few days, CineLog carries the breakdown and the shot list through every draft. In FrameForge, the new draft is a new text import.
The breakdown and the schedule
Now that the script is in, the next thing is the breakdown and the schedule, and this one is short.
FrameForge has no breakdown, no cast numbering and no stripboard. What it has on Pro is a second order for the frames, a shooting order next to the story order, so the boards can print the way the day will run, and equipment reports that list the camera gear per shot. That’s useful on the day. It isn’t a schedule.
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. 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.
For Harbor, twelve days and 25 people, the AD builds the board in CineLog and the shot list follows it into day order. FrameForge never enters this part of the job.
Shot lists and storyboards
Now that the days are laid out, the next thing is the shot list and the boards, and this is FrameForge’s home ground, so let’s give it its due.
FrameForge’s frame is a photograph of a shot that hasn’t been taken yet. You build the set from its library or import your own models, you pose actors from a cast of smart objects, you place a camera that matches the real one and pick a prime from a lens set, and the render obeys the optics, so if the 24mm doesn’t clear the doorway, you find out in prep. On Pro the grip equipment collides with the walls the way real gear does, the lights are many, and the sun sits where it will sit at that address on that date and hour. Every board carries its focal length, camera height, camera position and an overhead blueprint, the shot list exports with the boards in story or shooting order, the camera data goes out as a table, and a few frames tween into an animatic you export as video. What FrameForge doesn’t do is draw. There’s no pencil in the app, and a frame you want to paint on goes out to Paint, Preview or Photoshop and comes back. It also holds its own file per project and runs on one machine at a time.
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 3D. No sets, no actors, no lenses, no sun, and no drawing tool. You bring the frames in as images, and a FrameForge render is the best kind of image to bring.
So on this section the two are good at different halves, honestly. FrameForge finds out whether the shot is possible. CineLog runs the list. For Harbor, the DP wants tomorrow’s shots on an iPad at the location scout with the cast numbers on them. That’s CineLog. If the DP also wants to know how the crane fits in the kitchen, that’s a FrameForge file on the laptop, and the frame it makes goes onto the CineLog shot.
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.
FrameForge has no call sheet and no AV script, and it doesn’t claim either. Sharing is printing, a PDF, a set of images, or HTML pages you put on your own web server.
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 nineteen people who need a sheet every night, from the same project the shot list lives in.
Where you can actually use it
Now that we’ve gone through the documents, the next thing is where you can open them, and FrameForge is a desktop program in the old sense.
FrameForge runs on Windows and Mac, and it only needs the internet to register. The licence installs on up to three computers as long as one copy runs at a time, which is the whole collaboration story: there’s no sharing between users, no real-time anything, and no cloud. There’s no phone app, no tablet app and no browser version. The knowledge base’s system requirements still name Windows 7 and OS X 10.7, with later articles confirming it runs on Catalina and Ventura, and nothing says what it does on the current macOS, so a trial on your own machine is the honest test.
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 had only one person touching the shot list, and I’ve never been on a location where the signal was good in every room. On Harbor, the AD changes tomorrow’s order on a phone in the stone-walled house, and the DP sees it on the iPad in the next room. FrameForge is one DP at one desk, offline, with a very good picture.
Pricing, and who pays for the crew
And the last thing is the money, and here the two are priced for different people.
FrameForge is priced per machine. Core is $498 once, or $12.99 a month billed yearly, and Pro, with the lens sets, the grip gear, the sun and the shooting order, is $799 once, $24.99 a month billed yearly, or $34.99 a month billed by the quarter. Subscribers who stay get ten percent off for every full year, up to half. Education prices run from $8.99 a month for Core to $449 once for Pro. Owners of an old perpetual licence can upgrade to version 4 for $179.95. There’s a 14-day trial with no card and a 30-day guarantee. For a DP who previs every job, a one-time Pro licence is a tool you own for years, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
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. 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.
| Tool | Plan for Harbor | Price |
|---|---|---|
| FrameForge | Pro on the DP’s laptop | $799 once, or $24.99 a month, for the previs |
| CineLog | Production Company, all 25 on the project | $40 a month, for the chain from script to call sheet |
That’s not a comparison of two prices. It’s a comparison of two jobs. FrameForge is the DP’s instrument, bought once. CineLog is the production’s tool, for everyone on it.
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.
Drawing. Neither has a pencil. FrameForge renders and sends you to a paint program, and CineLog takes several images per shot.
The budget. Neither has one.
Post. Both stop before the edit, and FrameForge at least exports the animatic. 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, figure out what the frames are for. If the question is whether the shot is physically possible with that lens, that gear and that sun, that’s what FrameForge was built to answer, and it answers it well. If the question is which twelve shots the AD runs tomorrow and who’s in them, read on.
Second, count the people who will change the plan. FrameForge runs one copy at a time on a desktop. If the answer is more than one, the shot list lives somewhere else.
Third, check the signal at each location, and take the phone. FrameForge doesn’t run on it. CineLog does, offline.
The bottom line
FrameForge is the serious previs program, optically honest, bought once, for the DP at the desk. CineLog is the pick for the scripted shoot with a real crew, because the shot list comes off the script, runs in day order with the cast numbers on it, feeds the call sheet, and six people can change it at once on any device, with or without a signal. That’s FrameForge vs CineLog.
Questions people ask
Is CineLog an alternative to FrameForge?
For the shot list and the boards on a production, yes. CineLog builds the list from the script, orders it per shooting day, holds several frames per shot and ties it to the schedule and the call sheet. What CineLog doesn’t do is 3D previs. FrameForge’s optically accurate renders are its own thing, and a FrameForge render is the best frame to drop into a CineLog shot.
Which one is cheaper?
For one DP, FrameForge Core at $498 once or Pro at $799 once, kept for years. For a production with a crew on it, CineLog, because $40 a month covers 25 people and every tool, and FrameForge covers one machine.
Does FrameForge have a shot list?
Yes. It exports a shot list with the boards in story or shooting order, with the camera data as a table. It has no shot list per shooting day and no cast numbers. CineLog has both.
Which one works offline on set?
Both work offline. FrameForge needs the internet only to register. CineLog works offline on every device, including phones and tablets, for every tool, up to seven days, and merges everyone’s changes after.
Which one runs on a phone or tablet?
Only CineLog. FrameForge runs on Windows and Mac.
Can two people work on the same project at the same time?
On CineLog, yes. On FrameForge, no. The licence runs one copy at a time and projects are shared as files or prints.
Which one handles the script and its revisions?
CineLog. It imports .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF and text, locks scene numbers and pages, colors revisions and exports the revised pages. FrameForge imports a text export of the script to line it to shots.
Is FrameForge still updated?
Version 4 is the product on sale, with its what’s-new page from 2018 and a 4.2.3 build mentioned in a 2025 support article. The knowledge base’s system requirements still name Windows 7 and OS X 10.7. Take the 14-day trial on your own machine.
Which one makes the call sheet?
CineLog, from the schedule day, with the weather, the sun times and the nearest hospital, sent per person with delivery and confirmation tracking. FrameForge has no call sheet.
Can I switch from FrameForge to CineLog?
Yes. Export the frames from FrameForge as images and attach them to the shots in CineLog, bring the script in as .fdx, Fountain or PDF, and populate the shot list from it. The FrameForge render sits on the row with the lens in the column next to it.
To recap
To recap, in this article we talked about picking on the shape of the job 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. FrameForge tests the shot in 3D at the desk. CineLog runs the shot list through the shoot, with the whole crew on it, on any device.
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.