Highland Pro and CineLog get compared because both write screenplays in Fountain, both run as native apps on a Mac and an iPhone, and both will take a PDF of a script and turn it back into something you can edit. So a writer who has lived in Highland for years looks at CineLog and sees a familiar editor with a lot of other tabs next to it. What I usually like to do is pick on the shape of the job instead of the feature list, because a writer finishing a draft alone and a crew of 25 shooting that draft 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 Highland Pro alternative, or for apps like Highland Pro, 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 Highland side against the App Store listing and its version history, the product page, the support pages and John August’s own posts about the first year of Highland Pro. Prices are from the App Store on that day. Both tools ship changes every month, so read every number as correct on that date and check again before you decide.
Short summary
CineLog is the pick when the script is going to a crew. When the pages need to lock, with A-pages, lettered scenes, OMITTED scenes, the standard revision colors and a revised-pages-only PDF that goes to the set. When the breakdown, the stripboard, the shot list and the call sheet have to come off that script in the same project. When the AD is on Windows or the DP is on Android, because Highland has no plans beyond Apple. And when more than one person edits at once, because Highland’s own team uses another tool for that.
Highland Pro is a writing app, and it says so. It comes from the people who wrote the Fountain format, it keeps your script as plain text in a bundle you own, it melts a Final Draft or Fountain PDF back into editable text, and its revision mode tracks changes in color with stars in the margin. Fling puts a temporary web copy of the script in front of a reader who leaves comments without owning the app. It’s native on Mac, iPad and iPhone, it’s $59.99 a year, and when the subscription lapses it still opens, prints and exports your files. Its support page answers the locked-pages question with one word, “No”, and explains that Highland focuses on writing over production.
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 script going into production, like Harbor | Locked scene numbers and pages, A-pages, OMITTED scenes, standard revision colors with asterisks, and a revised-pages-only PDF for the crew. |
| A draft that keeps changing after the lock | A scene-by-scene diff on every re-import, so the breakdown and the shot list survive the new pages. Highland lists draft comparison on its roadmap, not in the app. |
| The same script feeding a breakdown, a board and a call sheet | One project from the first draft to the last call sheet. Highland has cast and location lists and stops there. |
| A crew on Windows and Android as well as Apple | Native apps on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android plus the browser. Highland has no plans beyond Apple. |
| Two people in the script at once | Real-time collaboration with view or edit rights per tool. Highland’s Fling collects comments from readers and doesn’t co-edit. |
Head to head
Prices are in US dollars, checked November 2, 2026.
| Highland Pro | CineLog | |
|---|---|---|
| Script editor | Yes, Fountain-native | Yes |
| Script import | Fountain, .fdx, PDF with PDF Melting | .fdx, Fountain, PDF, RTF, text, with a diff on re-import |
| Export | PDF, Fountain, .fdx, Markdown, RTF, text, DOCX | PDF, Fountain, .fdx, text |
| Revision mode | Yes, colored text and margin stars, revised-pages-only export documented | Yes, standard revision colors, asterisks, revised-pages-only export |
| Locked pages and scene numbers | No, by Highland’s own answer, scene numbers are automatic or typed by hand | Yes, scene and page lock, A-pages, lettered scenes, OMITTED scenes |
| New draft of the script | Draft comparison on the roadmap | Scene-by-scene diff |
| Breakdown | Cast and location lists, gender analysis | Yes, tagged from the script text, cast numbered for you |
| Stripboard, shot list, storyboards, call sheets, AV script | No | Yes, all of them, in the same project |
| Sharing | Fling, a temporary web copy with reader comments, one hour to seven days | Client review link on the AV script, roles per tool for the crew |
| Real-time collaboration | No | Yes |
| Works offline | Files are local or in iCloud, offline isn’t stated | Yes, every tool, up to seven days |
| Native apps | Mac, iPad, iPhone, Vision, no Windows, Android or web editor | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, plus the browser |
| Price | $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, one subscription for all Apple devices, 30-day trial, free for university students | Free plan, then $15, $40 or $90 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. With a writing app, the first section is most of the comparison, so this time it’s the long one.
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 Highland’s home ground, so let’s give it its due.
Highland Pro writes in Fountain and keeps the file as plain text inside a bundle, so your script is never locked inside a format. It imports Fountain and .fdx, and it melts a PDF from most screenwriting apps back into editable text, which is the feature Highland started life as, in 2012. The revision mode marks changes in color with stars in the margin, you can mark revisions by hand or let it track them, and the export can show the stars and the colors or hide them, and it can print only the revised pages, which their support page documents. Scene numbers come in automatically or you type them, including a lettered one like 1A by hand. And Fling, added in March 2026, puts a temporary web copy of the script in front of a reader for an hour, a day or a week, and their comments land back in your document.
What Highland doesn’t do, it says itself. Does Highland Pro have locked pages? Their support page answers “No.” There’s no page lock, so when a revision runs long, the pages after it renumber. There’s no scene lock, so the numbers you typed are yours to keep straight. There’s no OMITTED state, only the Fountain boneyard, which drops text from the output. And when a new draft comes in, there’s no comparison against the old one, because “Smart Comparison between Drafts” is on their 2026 roadmap, not in the app.
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 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 in the standard order, 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 PDF melting as a named tool, Markdown, or Highland’s Fling.
So for Harbor, where the script gets locked about two weeks before day one and then revised every few days, Highland marks the changed lines. CineLog marks them and keeps the page numbers true, which is the difference between a writer’s revision and a production’s.
The breakdown and the schedule
Now that the script is in, the next thing is the breakdown and the schedule, and Highland tells you plainly it isn’t that kind of tool.
Highland Pro has a cast list with an “add all characters” button, a locations list that can keep itself updated, a gender analysis of lines and scenes, and custom pages where you can type a breakdown by hand if you want one. There’s no tagging, no categories, no stripboard and no schedule, and the support page’s line is that Highland focuses on writing over production.
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.
For Harbor, twelve days and 25 people, this is where the writing app hands off to something else, and CineLog is that something else without the handoff.
Shot lists and storyboards
Now that the days are laid out, the next thing is the shot list, and this one is short.
Highland Pro has no shot list and no storyboards. You can drop an image into the Mac editor, and that’s as close as it gets.
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, and the scout has no signal. That’s CineLog.
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.
Highland Pro doesn’t make call sheets, and it doesn’t claim to. Its fourteen templates are writing formats, screenplay, multi-cam, manuscript, stageplay and the rest.
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.
For Harbor, that’s nineteen people who need a sheet every night, from the same project the script 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 here Highland is honest and narrow.
Highland Pro is native on Mac, iPad and iPhone, and it lists Apple Vision too. It needs macOS 13 on the Mac and this year’s OS 26 on the phone and the tablet, so an older iPad is out. The files are yours, local or in iCloud or Dropbox, and Highland runs no sync of its own, which August himself says sometimes doesn’t just work. The iPhone version is the smaller one, and August says so too: if the phone is your only experience of Highland Pro, you’ll be disappointed. There’s no Windows version, no Android version and no web editor, and their FAQ says there are no plans to go beyond Apple. Fling is a web page for readers, not a place to write. And when two people need to edit the same document, Highland’s own team uses a different product.
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, so the script supervisor can edit the script and only read the schedule.
For me, for example, this is the one that decides it, because I’ve never been on a crew where everyone had a Mac. On Harbor, the production designer is on Windows, two of the six changers are on Android phones, and the script supervisor needs to be in the script at the same time as the director. CineLog puts all of them on the project. Highland puts the writer on it.
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 buys once the script leaves the writer’s desk.
Highland Pro is $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, and one subscription covers the Mac, the iPad and the iPhone. There’s a 30-day trial, it’s free for a year for anyone in a university writing course, and if you stop paying, the app goes read-only but still opens, prints and exports everything. Highland 2, the old one-time purchase, isn’t sold any more. For one writer, that’s a fair price 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 | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Highland Pro | One writer’s subscription, billed yearly, and the other 24 people in other tools | $5, plus the scheduling, shot list and call sheet tools on top |
| CineLog | Production Company, all 25 on the project | $40 |
That’s not a comparison of two prices. It’s a comparison of two jobs. Highland is the cheaper way to write a script, and CineLog is the only one of the two that takes the script to the set.
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.
Drawing. Neither has a pencil. CineLog holds several image frames per shot, and Highland holds an image in the Mac editor.
Post. Both stop before the edit. 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 whether this script is going to be shot by a crew in the next six months. If it’s a spec, Highland is a very good place to write it. If it has a shoot date, read on.
Second, make scene 12A. Open each tool, lock the script, insert a scene between 12 and 13, and look at the number it gets and at what happened to page 17. On CineLog that’s the lock button. On Highland you type the number and renumber the pages yourself.
Third, count the devices on the crew that aren’t Apple. If the number is above zero, those people are on CineLog or on a PDF.
The bottom line
Highland Pro is a writer’s app with a clean editor, a format you own and a fair price, and it tells you itself that it focuses on writing over production. CineLog is the pick once the script has a crew, because it locks the pages properly, builds the breakdown, the board, the shot list and the call sheet from the same script, runs on every device the crew owns, and lets six people work in it at once. That’s Highland Pro vs CineLog.
Questions people ask
Is CineLog an alternative to Highland Pro?
For writing a script that’s going into production, yes. CineLog’s editor imports Fountain and .fdx, locks scene numbers and pages, colors revisions and exports the revised pages, and the breakdown, schedule and call sheet live in the same project. For a writer who wants Fountain plain text, PDF melting and nothing else, that’s Highland’s job.
Which one is cheaper?
For one writer, Highland Pro, at $59.99 a year. For a production with a crew on it, CineLog, because $40 a month on Production Company covers 25 people and every tool, and Highland covers the writer.
Does Highland Pro lock pages?
No. Highland’s own support page says so, and explains that it focuses on writing over production. CineLog locks scene numbers and pages, gives you A-pages and OMITTED scenes, and exports the revised pages on their color.
Which one works offline on set?
CineLog, on every device, for every tool, up to seven days. Highland keeps your files locally or in iCloud, and doesn’t state offline behavior.
Which one runs on Windows or Android?
Only CineLog. Highland’s FAQ says there are no plans beyond the Apple ecosystem.
Can two people write in the script at the same time?
On CineLog, yes. On Highland Pro, no. Fling sends a temporary web copy to readers for comments, and their comments come back to you to apply.
Can I bring my Highland script into CineLog?
Yes. Export it as Fountain or .fdx from Highland and import it. CineLog shows re-imports as a scene-by-scene diff.
Which one has PDF melting?
Highland Pro has it as a named tool for Final Draft and Fountain PDFs. CineLog imports PDFs by reading where every line sits on the page, and brings them in as script elements.
Do my collaborators need to pay?
On CineLog, no. They make a free account and get the rights you give them. On Highland Pro, each writer needs their own subscription, and readers use Fling for free.
Can I switch from Highland Pro to CineLog?
Yes. Export Fountain or .fdx from Highland Pro and import it. The breakdown is tagged on the page with the cast done for you, later drafts show as a scene-by-scene diff, and CineLog exports Fountain and .fdx back, so nothing is locked in.
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. Highland Pro is a writer’s app that says so. CineLog takes the same script to the set, with the pages locked, 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.