The best open source alternative to Scrivener is Manuskript. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Scrivener and many of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Scrivener are Zettlr, bibisco, Quoll Writer and Dendron.
Open-source software offering a hierarchical outliner, distraction-free editor, character management, plot tools, Snowflake method support, section multi-organization, customizable writing workflows, cross-platform availability, and export to standard formats.
Unified writing platform offering note-taking, easy citations with Zotero integration, LaTeX/Word templates, snippets, themes, dark modes, code highlighting, multi-language support, and knowledge management with Zettelkasten for seamless writing from notes to books.
Desktop application for novel structuring, offering chapter and scene management, distraction-free text editing, detailed timeline, character interviews, multilingual support, export to publishing formats, revision history, relationship diagrams, and writing goal tracking.
Focus on your words not the interface. Quoll Writer is a writing application that helps you focus on your words. Clean and uncluttered. Feature rich. Features are where you would expect them to be.
Dendron is an open-source, local-first, markdown-based, note-taking tool built on top of VSCode. It supports all the usual features you would expect like tagging, backlinks, a graph view, split panes, and so forth.
novelWriter is a Markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents. It uses its own flavor of Markdown that supports a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis and cross-referencing between files.
A smooth yet powerful writing experience for devoted authors. With only wanted features and native workflow it runs faster than all your previous apps combined.
Looking for a suite of tools for writing your book? This is not just a text editor it does so much more. Organise your story using timelines, planning boards and the snowflake tool, all integrated to make writing intuitive and fun.
Free offline worldbuilding and story creation tool with dozens of templates, complex tagging options, document linking, and project-wide search. Template examples: characters, places, events, religions, currencies, magic, species, languages.
Offers fast, distraction-free note-taking via a high-performance editor with real-time Markdown, local-first storage, image support, Kanban task boards, intuitive drag-and-drop, keyboard shortcuts, configurable themes, fast search, and cross-platform access.
oStorybook is a free, open source novel-writing software for creative writers, novelists and authors which will help you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing texts.
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There are many similar layout features compared to Scrivener. It also has a few features Scrivener seems to be missing or doesn't define clearly such as an outline process. However, it is very early development and has many bugs to work out.