Best Free Writing Software
View:
Compare the Top Free Writing Software as of November 2026
Sort By:
What is Free Writing Software?
Writing software helps individuals and teams craft, edit, and organize written content, whether for creative projects, professional documents, or academic papers. These platforms typically offer features like spell check, grammar correction, style suggestions, and plagiarism detection to improve the quality of writing. Writing software often includes tools for structuring documents, managing outlines, and organizing ideas, making it easier for writers to maintain focus and coherence. Some advanced writing tools also provide distraction-free modes, collaboration features, and export options for different formats, ensuring a streamlined writing process. By using writing software, writers can enhance productivity, ensure consistency, and produce high-quality content more efficiently. Compare and read user reviews of the best Free Writing software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
-
1
SSuite Penumbra Editor
SSuite Office Software
SSuite Penumbra is a full featured word editor that creates rich text documents to make writing documents more convenient, efficient, and comfortable. Penumbra is an original free software application that is capable of running on any operating system. You also don't have any unnecessary functions and features hogging all your precious computer resources or overwhelming the screen like other bloated word processors. This makes it run extremely fast, is soft and gentle on the eyes (pleasantly colourful interface), and very easy to use without slowing your computer down to a crawl. SSuite Penumbra has also been designed to fit your screen more efficiently to create the correct proportions for your eyes. There is no more squinting or moving closer to the monitor to see what button or heading you are currently viewing on higher resolution monitors. New Online edition: https://carbon.ssuiteoffice.com/ Requires: . 1366x768 Display Size . Windows XP / 7 / 8 / 10 - 32bit & 64bitStarting Price: Free -
2
SSuite WordGraph Editor
SSuite Office Software
SSuite WordGraph is a free and very useful alternative to Microsoft's Word, OpenOffice's Writer, or anything else out there claiming to be the latest and greatest. You don't even have a need for .NET or even JAVA to be installed. This will save you a lot of hard drive space and precious computer resources. Use WordGraph for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book with embedded illustrations, tables of contents, indexes, and bibliographies. WordGraph is a complete and powerful software solution for creating, editing and viewing various types of documents. You can create simple or highly structured documents include graphics, tables, charts, and insert spreadsheets you created. A number of available features give you a fine degree of control over the formatting of text, pages, sections of documents, and also entire documents. Desktop, Portable, and Online Editions Available. Read the "Read Me" document first! Requires: 1024x768 Display SizeStarting Price: Free -
3
Canva
Canva
Canva is an AI-powered visual design and content creation platform that enables individuals and businesses to create graphics, presentations, videos, documents, websites, and marketing materials. The software provides a drag-and-drop editor with customizable templates, stock photography, illustrations, fonts, animations, and multimedia assets. Its AI capabilities include conversational design generation, image and video creation, automated background removal, writing assistance, and intelligent editing tools. Canva's Visual Suite includes presentations, whiteboards, documents, spreadsheets, website creation, and video editing within a unified workspace. Collaboration features allow teams to edit projects together, share feedback, manage brand assets, and maintain visual consistency through Brand Kits and templates. The platform also offers Canva Code for generating interactive websites and applications, along with publishing tools, social media scheduling, and integrations.Starting Price: $10 per month -
4
Reedsy Studio
Reedsy
Reedsy Studio is a professional writing app designed to plan, draft, edit, and typeset your book. Plan Boards are unique, flexible spaces for outlining, keeping track of characters, and getting organized. Writers can also browse a library of templates that teach classic story structures. Studio combines all the tools you need to craft your first draft. Set and meet writing goals Writers can set custom writing goals and map their writing routines. The app will tell them how much they need to write daily and automatically adjust as they progress on their manuscripts. Collaborate Writers can invite co-authors, beta readers, and professional editors to work on their books. Live collaboration tools are fully integrated with the Reedsy Marketplace, where writers can hire top editors. Format Studio formats EPUB files for ebooks and print-ready PDF files with a click. Both are compatible with all major print-on-demand distributors.Starting Price: $4.99 -
5
Google Docs
Google
Google Docs is an AI-powered online document platform designed to help individuals and teams create, edit, and collaborate on content in real time. The platform includes Gemini AI features that assist users with drafting documents, organizing ideas, refining writing styles, and generating polished content using simple prompts. Google Docs offers collaborative tools such as live editing, comments, version history, document sharing controls, and integrated video meetings to help teams work together efficiently from any location. Users can streamline workflows with templates, smart building blocks, electronic signatures, meeting notes integration, and reusable content snippets for faster document creation. The platform also supports importing and editing popular file formats including Microsoft Word documents and PDFs while maintaining collaborative editing capabilities.Starting Price: Free -
6
Zoho Writer
Zoho
Zoho Writer is an online word processor that allows you to write, edit, and collaborate on documents, as well as publish them on multiple platforms. With powerful editing tools, an AI-powered, multilingual writing assistant, and a multi-stage approval workflow, Writer is just the right tool for all your content-writing needs. Writer is a powerful, cloud-based word processor that allows you to easily and efficiently create online documents. With Writer you can: Collaborate with your team in real-time and leverage their collective knowledge to build informative and engaging documents Receive writing and style suggestions from the smart writing assistant Instantly check for plagiarized and duplicated content in your document Automate document creation and simplify business processes with mail merge, fillable forms, and e-signature collection Confidently finalize all documents with multi-stage document approval workflows Publish and distribute documents in multiple channelsStarting Price: Free -
7
Pure Writer
Drakeet
This is a fast plain text and Markdown editor designed with what we believe "a good writing experience" should be. Pure Writer is minimalistic and it allows you to write at your heart's content anytime, anywhere without fearing that you'll lose your content ever again. With Pure Writer's line and paragraph spacing feature, your text will be clearer and more comfortable to read. Not only that, but it also has smooth scrolling, a swipe-to-collapse-keyboard, and many more exciting features. Simplicity is hidden complexity. You are able to encrypt your work with your fingerprint, start or stop writing whenever you wish, and share your content quickly to other apps, we've got you covered. Most importantly, unless you manually delete it, you will never ever lose your work while using this text editor. Be it an accidental deletion or an unexpected shutdown, you will still be able to recover it from the history.Starting Price: Free -
8
Calmly Writer
Calmly Writer
Traditional word processors include dozens of options for formatting text, distracting you from what really matters, writing. Calmly Writer is an editor designed to focus on what you want to tell, with a simple, unobtrusive, and easy-to-use user interface. Calmly Writer has been designed to help you focus on writing. As you start typing, all the distracting options disappear from the user interface. The "focus mode" option highlights only the paragraph you are editing at the time. Format your text simply by selecting and clicking on the desired style. If you prefer, you can also do it with keyboard shortcuts or markdown. As long as you do not close a document tab, that document will be opened every time you start the application. If the document was not saved, its backup will be loaded. Calmly Writer displays the number of words and characters written, and allows you to set a target. You can choose between light, dark, dark blue, dune and old-school mode.Starting Price: $11.45 one-time payment -
9
Werdsmith
Werdsmith
Werdsmith is a creative writing app for novelists, screenwriters, poets and short story writers. Write on iPhone and iPad, with companion apps for Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro and compatible Macs. Capture ideas, organize projects and use writing modes that format novels, poems and screenplays as you type. Novel Mode adds chapter headings and keeps chapter numbers in order. Build a daily writing habit with reminders, word targets, project goals and writing statistics. Optional AI writing prompts help you continue a story in your own style. Import text, Markdown, RTF, Word documents, supported Google Docs and PDFs. Export text, RTF or PDF. Optional account sync, automatic backups and version history help protect your writing. Share projects by link or publish selected work to a personal writer portfolio. Werdsmith is free to download, with an optional paid membership.Starting Price: Free -
10
Falcontext
Falcontext
Falcontext is a writing and story-checking tool for novelists, authors and other writers. It analyzes a whole manuscript for continuity issues, character and point-of-view changes, repeated paragraphs, doubled words, filter words, adverbs, dialogue tags and other prose patterns, then marks findings in supported editors so writers can review and fix them. It also provides word counts, daily and book-level goals, streaks, timed writing sprints, chapter and scene outlines, and character tracking. Falcontext is available as a browser extension, a desktop app for Mac, and Perch, a browser-based writing pad and tracker. Its checks run on the user's device without AI. A free plan is available, with paid Pro plans that unlock all findings.Starting Price: $19.99/year -
11
BlurbBio
BlurbBio
BlurbBio is a browser-based writing and manuscript-analysis platform for fiction authors. It combines a chapter-based editor with plot outlining and a Story Bible that organizes characters, locations, relationships, timelines, and canon details. The Story Bible can be built from manuscript text, while continuity checks compare new chapters with established story facts and identify potential contradictions. Analysis tools examine plot structure, pacing, dialogue, and character consistency; the AI Copilot provides brainstorming support. Authors can import manuscripts and export work as DOCX, PDF, or EPUB, with some options limited by plan. BlurbBio also provides free author utilities, including a character and place name generator. A free account and paid Writer and Author plans offer different project, analysis, and AI-credit allowances.Starting Price: $10/month -
12
bibisco
bibisco
bibisco is novel writing software to plan, structure and write a novel in one project. Chapters and scenes, reordered by dragging and kept with their revisions, sit next to the premise, fabula, setting and storylines. Characters are developed through an interview on psychology, behaviour and history; every location has its own page with descriptions and images. An existing draft can be imported from DOCX or ODT. bibisco does not generate text; the writing stays with the writer. The desktop app runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, in 16 languages. The Community Edition is free and unlocks every Supporters Edition feature for the first 30 days. The Supporters Edition, a one-time purchase, adds objects, groups, notes, the outline, the timeline, mind maps, novel analysis, writing goals, revision comparison and exports for a manuscript, a KDP-ready print book PDF and an EPUB. Mobile apps for Android, iPhone and iPad, and sync, come with the separate bibisco Everywhere subscription. -
13
AutoCrit
AutoCrit
Built to match the genuine demands of publishing professionals and discerning readers, AutoCrit adds a technological edge to your creativity. The actual content of real-world books, fused with the eagle eye of a veteran book editor, takes you leaps and bounds beyond anything you’ve seen before. AutoCrit gives you step-by-step recommendations for improving your manuscript based on what real readers want to see. Produce cleaner dialogue, eliminate needless filler, keep readers interested by perfecting your pacing, and even fine-tune the emotional tone of your writing with the click of a button. Feel unshakeable confidence in your book and leave worries in the dust. Whether you’re writing a rip-roaring fantasy adventure, a nail-biting suspense novel, or a game-changing guide to boosting profits in business, AutoCrit has you covered for the editing advice you need.Starting Price: $30 per month -
14
Author
The Augmented Text Company
Powerful writing tool for outstanding college papers, with integrated Concept Map, Quick Citations, & Export to Augmented Academic PDF. Integrated Concept Map allows you to map and write in the same workflow. Powerful Views for powerful insights through advanced folding, finding, focus & more. Quick Citations from any book, academic paper or website. Export Augmented University Papers to make reading your work more interactive.Starting Price: $19.99 -
15
xTiles
xTiles Inc
A web note-taking app for creative people that combines the best from text editors and whiteboards. Think, write, and organize your thoughts based on cards and tabs. Structure and enrich all of your ideas in one place. By creating an infinite canvas where cards, much like sticking notes, resemble a neatly organized collection of inter-related ideas. They serve as units of thoughts with clear borders, displayed on a squeaky-clean white canvas. To preclude the document from becoming messy as the number of cards augments, we betted on clear-cut and intuitive functions. They include drag’n’drops; deep dive; tabs within a document; embedded pictures, videos, and links; sub-pages. As a result, the users get a well-organized, easy-to-navigate space. Rather than providing bits and pieces of scattered information, the tool gives you a bird’s-eye view of the cards creating the big picture. Our app offers a collaborative space for teams, sharing cards, and elaborating on ideas.Starting Price: $8 -
16
PageFour
Bad Wolf Software
In December 2017 we released PageFour as free software. We did this because it is no longer under development and no new versions will be released. It’s now available as-is for anyone to download, install and use at no cost. You do not need a license key. All you need to do is download the software by clicking the button below, and run the installation program. PageFour is Windows software and will run on most Windows operating systems. Organize your work in a way that suits you. Place your character summaries and plot outlines wherever you wish. Chapters and notes are all at your fingertips. PageFour's powerful Search tool helps you quickly find that paragraph you wrote last week. No more Windows Search, or frantically opening document after document. Password protects those sensitive pages or chapters. Spell-checker dictionaries are available in many languages, including German, French, Spanish, etc.Starting Price: Free -
17
Novelist
Novelist
If you're still looking for the perfect app to write your novel, Novelist might just be the perfect tool for the job! Output your book in many different formats according to your needs, suitable for ebook readers or word processors. Novelist provides a rich text editor to edit your texts, with advanced formatting, comments, autosave, counters, and revision history. Set your desired word count or due date and Novelist will track your chapter-by-chapter progress up to completion. Preview your book's final output without leaving Novelist, and enjoy the result without distractions. Save your work with our backup/restore system on any available storage provider, internal, external, or cloud. Use one of the provided templates or create your custom one, including categories, statuses, items, and metadata. It's very easy to find and install Novelist on your smartphone. Novelist is completely free, no buying costs, in-app purchases, or hidden charges.Starting Price: Free -
18
Plot Factory
Plot Factory
Plan your stories or just start writing the first chapter, organize complex projects, write high-quality stories with our advanced manuscript editor, and write from anywhere, at any time. Plot Factory is optimized for mobile phones so that you won't have to be stuck on your computer to write. Track your daily, weekly, and monthly word stats. Set a goal and see a visual account of your progress. Hear your story out loud, and listen for grammatical errors, run-on sentences, and story flow. Quickly and easily build characters off built-in character sheets or build your own sheet. Choose from several outline designs to help you craft your plot while maintaining tension and a compelling story arc throughout your novel. Share one chapter or your entire novel with friends, beta readers, or editors with a URL link.Starting Price: $9 per month -
19
Writer Plus
Easy4U
Writer Plus (Write On the Go) is a lightweight Android writing app focused on simplicity and productivity, letting users quickly jot down notes, novels, lyrics, poems, essays, and drafts without the clutter of a full-featured word processor. Its core philosophy is “keep it simple,” providing essential features such as opening, editing, and saving plain text files, folder support, word and character counts, and undo/redo functions, all in a minimalist interface with Android Material UI style and battery-friendly performance. It supports Markdown formatting (including H1–H3 headers, bold and italic text, lists, and quotes), keyboard shortcuts, night mode, right-to-left language support, and Bluetooth keyboard compatibility for efficient writing anywhere. Users can share texts, and the app handles basic file management with stable performance even on limited resources.Starting Price: Free -
20
Tabularia
Mackley Studios
Tabularia is book-writing software designed to help you stay focused on your story and prose. It stays fast and navigable at book length, keeping the page, the structure, and every revision together from first draft to finished work. A project holds one continuous manuscript with one or more ordered books, already formatted as you work, so there is no assembly step between the draft and the book. The outline, minimap, search, and working scope all move through that single composition rather than a file tree. A character's inner change, a plot line, or a promise that must be paid off later becomes a timeline anchored to the passages that carry it, so following a thread lands you on the words you need to edit. Drafts can be captured at any scope and turned on and off in place, and an invited editor returns a redline you accept or reject a difference at a time. The writing app is free. A Cloud subscription adds backup, sync across devices, sharing for review, and web publishing.Starting Price: $18 / month -
21
Ritemark
Productory
Ritemark is a free, open-source Markdown writing app for macOS and Windows. It stores documents as regular files in folders on the user's computer, with a visual editor for working with Markdown. Its AI sidebar runs Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode agents against the open folder so they can read, create, and revise documents alongside the writer. A built-in terminal and folder-based workspaces support writing and reference workflows. Users can export documents to Word or PDF and publish or sync them with Google Docs. Basic editing does not require an account or AI service; using AI agents may require a separate provider account or API costs. Ritemark serves writers, including technical writers and product managers, as well as consultants and other professionals preparing documentation, specifications, training material, and client-facing documents.Starting Price: Free -
22
Quorly
Quorly
Quorly is a private writing app for drafting essays, articles, newsletters, blog posts, and other long-form work. Its rich-text editor offers focused and reading modes, a searchable document library, formatting tools, and offline writing after the app has loaded. Documents are stored locally in the browser or desktop app, with no account required for the free editor. Writers can import Word, Markdown, plain-text, and Quorly files, then export drafts as Markdown, PDF, plain text, or a Quorly package; Pro adds EPUB import and export, Hemingway Mode, and optional backup to the writer’s Google Drive. Quorly is available in a browser, as an installable web app, and as desktop software for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Drafts can be copied as formatted text for pasting into publishing platforms such as Substack, Ghost, or Medium.Starting Price: $0 -
23
Drafts
Drafts
Drafts opens to a new page with the keyboard ready so you can type immediately. Go hands-free with dictation. Drafts lets you get things down before you forget without fiddling folders, naming, etc. Drafts is a launching-off point for text – use the actions to copy it, share it, or deep link into other apps and services. Compose a tweet or message, create a file in Dropbox, send a task off to reminders – there are hooks into tons of your favorite apps. New entries go into the Inbox. Once there, you can tag them for organization, Flag them for importance, or archive them for long-term storage. Set up a text editing experience that’s perfect for you, with tons of interface adjustments like custom fonts and control over spacing, line height, and margins. Drafts gives you a new approach to using your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch, letting you write first and think about what to do with it later. Try it in your dock for a week, you’ll find you can’t live without it. -
24
Notepad
Microsoft
Notepad has been the fast and simple text editor on Windows for over 30 years, and now it’s available in the Microsoft Store! View, edit, and search through plain text documents and source code files instantly. Edit text-based files and source code instantly. Customize your view with font options. Save in multiple encodings including UTF-8, UTF-16, and ANSI. For Windows 10 version 19541.0 or higher. Notepad offers only the most basic text manipulation functions, such as finding and replacing text. Until Windows ME, there were almost no keyboard shortcuts and no line-counting feature. Starting with Windows 2000, shortcuts for common commands like "New", "Open", and "Save" were added, as well as a status bar with a line counter (available only when word-wrap is disabled.) Notepad can print files. It allows customizing headers, footers, and margins before printing. The date, file name, and other information can be placed in the headers and footers with various codes. -
25
Scene One
Scene One
Scene One is online book writing software for authors at all stages of their writing journey. At it's core, Scene One provides an easy text editor in which you write your scenes, and collects all these scenes together into a project. A 'project' is usually one book, but it lets you work the way you naturally want to. It also has many powerful tools to help you write your books. It has an AI writing assistant that can help suggest new text, can rephrase sentences, and even expand stub scenes. It also has a wiki for all your story elements, and can then track every occurrence of these elements. This means you can easily jump around in your story to see the first time you mention a character or track down a detail you can't quite remember. Scene One also tracks your daily words written, has advanced exporters, lets you collaborate with other authors, and much more! Finally, we have an ever-growing blog for writing advice and tip and tricks.Starting Price: $9 per month -
26
Essayist
Essayist Software
Upon starting a new essay it sets up the title section/page, margins, font, line spacing, alignment, page headers/footers, etc. It formats your references, in-text citations, footnotes/endnotes, figures, tables, table of contents and more. Add in-text citations and footnotes/endnotes with ease. Simply click the insert citation button and select the reference you wish to cite. An in-text citation/footnote/endnote is automatically created for you. Add references quickly and easily using Google Scholar, Essayist’s built-in search, by pasting a URL or manual entry forms. Once added, references are automatically formatted and added to your essay’s references/works cited list.Starting Price: Free -
27
Plooma
Plooma
Plooma is your all in one writing companion, designed to support authors at every twist and turn of the book creation journey. Whether you're sketching out your story's blueprint, breathing life into characters, or crafting chapters, Plooma provides a seamless space to organize all your ideas and materials without the overwhelm. Its intuitive interface makes building rich narratives and immersive worlds feel effortless. Packed with powerful story and character organization tools, Plooma lets you track character development and manage world building details with ease. When it’s time to write, the distraction-free mode offers a clean, minimal environment to help you dive deep and write consistently. Plus, built-in editing tools catch grammar slips and style quirks in real-time, polishing your story so you don’t have to juggle multiple apps.Starting Price: $10 per user/month -
28
Raptor Write
Raptor Write
Raptor Write is a free AI-powered writing tool created by the Future Fiction Academy that helps writers brainstorm, outline, and draft stories with minimal friction. It features a clean, distraction-free interface designed to let authors focus on ideas rather than tool complexity. All projects are stored locally in the user’s browser, giving users more control over their work. The tool connects via OpenRouter, enabling users to plug in different AI models and experiment with output styles. While it’s lightweight and easy to use, it doesn’t include some of the deeper structure tools found in more heavyweight platforms. Still, it offers a gentle, no-cost entry point for writers curious about exploring AI in their creative workflows.Starting Price: Free -
29
Scyn
Scyn
Scyn is a visual plot-mapping tool for novelists. The surface is a causal graph, not a timeline grid. Each scene is a node, and when one event produces another you draw a directional link from the first to the second. A node carries a title, an optional description, a chapter or act tag, and a colour. Links can carry a short label. Filters narrow the map by act, chapter, or colour. Story Mode reads the same map back in chapter order. Scyn is web only. There is no desktop or mobile app and no manuscript editor. It is a plot logic layer, not a writing suite, so it sits alongside Scrivener, Dabble, or a word processor rather than replacing them. The free plan needs no card and has no time limit: one novel, 100 scenes, 200 links, 5 restorable versions, PNG export. Pro is $4.99/month or $49/year and adds unlimited projects, 1,000 scenes and 2,000 links per map, Story Mode, Cast and Places, unlisted sharing with 5 collaborators, 30 versions, PDF and DOCX export.Starting Price: $0 -
30
Writer Studio
Writer Studio
Writer Studio is a free, offline desktop app for fiction authors on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It organizes manuscripts into scenes, chapters, and parts, with a Book Wiki for characters, locations, and story knowledge beside the text. Authors can plan books and series, track revisions, and export to DOCX, EPUB, FB2, PDF, and Markdown. Manuscript files stay on the author’s computer; autosave, local backups, and version history support recovery. AI is optional and author-controlled. Core desktop features are free, while optional Authr Plus server services cover managed AI, hosted publications, and reader analytics. Writer Studio is currently in public alpha.Starting Price: Free
