WriterDuet Active
Real-time collaborative screenwriting in the browser.
At a glance
- Maker
- Guy Goldstein
- First release
- 2013
- Status
- Active — still developed and sold
- Platforms
- Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android
- Pricing
- Free (3 scripts); paid ~$8-16/mo; 50% student discount
- Native formats
- — cloud projects — export to .fdx, .fountain, PDF and more
What it is
WriterDuet is Google-Docs-style co-writing for screenplays: two cursors, one script, every keystroke synced. Its free sibling WriterSolo (pay-what-you-want) is the offline, privacy-first version — and both happily import the formats other apps abandoned.
What people are saying
The good
The free tier is considered one of the most generous anywhere, and real-time co-writing genuinely works: two cursors, one script, clean sync. The web experience is praised as smooth, support as responsive and human, and the free offline sibling WriterSolo is appreciated.
The bad
Reliability is the recurring worry: users report sync bugs and occasional lost pages, the mobile apps are judged buggier than the web version, and long scripts can bog down. Price creep has pushed paid tiers above some rivals, and slow feature development feeds a recurring “is this company okay?” anxiety on forums.
Paraphrased consensus from user reviews, forums and retrospective coverage across the web.
Where it came from
Guy Goldstein launched it in 2013 (Techstars class of 2017); it now claims millions of users. When Adobe Story died, WriterSolo explicitly added .astx import to rescue stranded scripts — the right instinct.
Worth knowing
Goldstein’s previous product made voice actors read scripts aloud — WriterDuet was born from watching writers collaborate badly.
Getting scripts in and out
Imports: Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain), Celtx (.celtx), Word (.docx), Adobe Story (.astx)
Exports: Final Draft (.fdx), Fountain (.fountain), PDF (.pdf), Word (.docx), Rich Text (.rtf), HTML (.html), Plain text (.txt)