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Best Outlining Writing Apps in 2025

Showing 38 writing apps that match your search.

Typing Chimp Character is designed to help fiction writers create better characters, stories, and worlds fast.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, PC

Best for: Outlining, Worldbuilding, Book, and Story

Website: http://www.typingchimp.com/

Base price:

$29.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Enneagram tools

Story generator

World generator

★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

Value

Mellel is a word processor designed from the ground up to be the ultimate writing tool for academics, technical writers, scholars and students. Mellel is strong, stable and reliable, and is the ideal companion for working on documents that are long and complex, short and simple, or anything in between.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, and Essay

Website: https://mellel.com/

Base price:

$49.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

Outline

Bibliography

Footnotes and endnotes

Multilingual support

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 3.2 on the App Store

Ever scribbled ideas on a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts? Then you already know what Scapple does. It's a virtual sheet of paper that lets you make notes anywhere and connect them using lines or arrows.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview

Base price:

$20.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Write notes anywhere

Connect notes using drag and drop

Completely freeform

★★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 5.0 on TechRadar

Manuskript is a perfect tool for those writer who like to organize and plan everything before writing. The snowflake method can help you grow your idea into a book, by leading you step by step and asking you questions to go deeper.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, PC

Best for: Outlining, Story, Book, and Free

Website: https://www.theologeek.ch/manuskript/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Index cards

Outliner

Frequency analyzer

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Writer Assistant (Wassi) is an application created specifically for inventors! We all constantly invent new characters for our stories, be it a comic, a novel, a script, a play, or a game. And so that our characters are alive and riveted the attention, they need to be developed a lot! That is what the Writer Assistant was created for! Plus, with Wassi you can easily outline your stories on the go.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://apps.apple.com/app/writer-assistant-wassi/id14686...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Outline

Interlinking

Character building template

Worldbuilding template

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 3.9 on the App Store

The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same. In Obsidian, making and following connections is frictionless. Tend to your notes like a gardener; at the end of the day, sit back and marvel at your own knowledge graph.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://obsidian.md/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$25.00 one-time payment

Link pages

Graph view

Customizable with backlinked notes

★★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.5 on TechRadar

With our writing tools you can track your progress thus far, plan your novel, write your novel and be able to focus on what matters for you the most: FINISHING THE DAMN BOOK!

Platforms: Android

Best for: Outlining, Worldbuilding, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.ajp_gam...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Writing log

Progress stats & timeline

Character profile

Writing goals

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Google Play

The Novel Factory helps guide new writers through the novel writing process - while completing your first manuscript.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, Online, PC

Best for: Book, Drafting, Outlining, and Story

Base price:

$75.00

Premium price:

Plot templates

Plot manager

Character development prompts

Track your statistics

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, PC

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Editing, Publishing, Book, and Story

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Base price:

$59.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Flexible corkboard

Structure outliner

Metadata and target setting

Print and export functionalities

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

Storyline Creator is an elegant writing tool that helps you streamline your writing process. It's incredibly fun to draft ideas, to visualize, enhance and organize your stories - so you can focus on your plot and the creativity instead of the paper war.

Platforms: Online

Best for: Outlining, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://www.storylinecreator.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$66.98 yearly

Timeline

Notebook

Character profiles

Random prompt generator

★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Whether you’re brainstorming ideas, presenting in meetings, or managing tasks, Ayoa provides you with flexibility and intuitive working methods every step of the way.

Platforms: Online, Mac, Windows, Android, PC

Best for: Outlining, Blog, and Essay

Website: https://www.ayoa.com/

Base price:

$10.00 monthly

Premium price:

$13.00 monthly

Collaborative online whiteboard

Mind mapping

Focus on progress

Idea bank

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.1 on Google Play

The only online writing and editing platform that guides your hand based on data from real, bestselling books, AutoCrit is built to match the genuine demands of publishing professionals and discerning readers.

Platforms: Online

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Proofreading, Book, Story, and Free

Website: https://www.autocrit.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$30.00 monthly

Pre-made templates

Digital notecards

Interactive reports

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on TechRadar

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