Beat Active
The free, fast, Fountain-native Mac screenwriter.
At a glance
- Maker
- Lauri-Matti Parppei (independent)
- First release
- —
- Status
- Active — still developed and sold
- Platforms
- Mac, iOS
- Pricing
- Free on macOS (open source); iOS €12.99 one-time
- Native format
- Fountain (.fountain)
What it is
Beat is a free, open-source Mac editor that treats Fountain as a first-class citizen, imports Final Draft (notes and revisions included), and stays out of your way. Development is strikingly active for a one-developer project.
What people are saying
The good
Enthusiasts describe an elegant, lightweight, genuinely free Fountain editor that feels faster than apps costing hundreds, with surprising depth (plugins included) and a responsive, approachable developer. Scripts stay plain text, so there is nothing to lock in.
The bad
It is a one-developer project under rapid development, so users hit occasional bugs and behavior changes between versions, and production features trail the big apps. Support runs through email, Discord and GitHub rather than a helpdesk, and community commentary is thinner than for the majors.
Paraphrased consensus from user reviews, forums and retrospective coverage across the web.
Where it came from
Created by Finnish developer Lauri-Matti Parppei as a rewrite of another open editor ("Writer"); the GitHub repo dates to 2019 and ships updates constantly.
Worth knowing
It has a JavaScript plugin system — and a famously irreverent FAQ.
Getting scripts in and out
Imports: Final Draft (.fdx), Highland (.highland), Fade In (.fadein), Celtx (.celtx), Fountain (.fountain)
Exports: Final Draft (.fdx), PDF (.pdf), Fountain (.fountain)