Best Storyboard Software & Story Board Apps in 2026

Storyboard software, or storyboarding tools, are programs that allow individuals to create a series of images that illustrate the planning for a film.

These images can be used as guidance for the production crew and filmmakers to know what will happen in each scene.

There are many different types of storyboards, with a few popular ones listedd below:

• animatics,
• rough sketches,
• layout boards.

The most popular type of storyboard is called a “scene board.” This type illustrates one individual scene at a time rather than an entire sequence of events.

Before we jump in, what is storyboarding?

Storyboarding is an essential part of video production, as it’s one of the most important steps of the process.

A storyboard is a visual representation of your script. It consists of a series of illustrations that show the sequence of shots and camera angles you want to use to tell your story.

It’s typically created before production ever begins, and used throughout the production process as a guide.

Best Storyboard Software

What Is Storyboarding Software?

Storyboarding software is a type of multimedia software that allows you to create storyboards for animation, comics, and films.

With the help of this application, you can use your computer to produce drawings quickly on screen without having to draw by hand.

Storyboarding software can be a powerful tool for illustrating story ideas and presenting them to others.

What Is A Storyboard?

A storyboard is a visual representation of the sequence of shots that will be in your video.

It’s an important part of pre-production, which includes planning out your movie through sketches or drawings.

It’s like an outline for a script, but instead, you’re using pictures and illustrations to tell the story. You can use software or paper and pencils to make storyboards too!

So stay tuned for more information about this exciting topic!

Storyboards are used to communicate with collaborators about what you want to shoot, how it should look, and how long each scene should be.

A well-crafted storyboard shows:

Positioning

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• The required camera setup for each shot,
• The framing size for each shot,
• The type of lens being used (wide-angle/telephoto),
• The depth of field desired (shallow or deep),
• The focal length desired (close up or medium distance).

In the film industry, storyboards are used as a method of pre-visualizing the production.

They offer a quick and easy way to communicate ideas with all members of the team and can be an indispensable tool for directors.

Storyboard artists work closely with production designers, costume designers, camera operators, and editors to create these visual representations of their films in order to give everyone involved insight into what it will look like when complete.

Where To Find Storyboard Artists For Any Budget?

You might think that you need to hire “big-name” storyboard artists to get a great product, but in reality, there are many talented and affordable options out there, from $250/hour all the way down to free!

The resources below will help locate an artist on your desired budget level.

Here are some tips on finding the perfect storyboard artist at any budget!

– First, look through online portfolios of artists in your area and compare their style with yours.

– Google search Storyboard Artists + Location.

– If you can’t find an artist that meets your needs, reach out to others who might be able to help. There’s no shame in asking someone else if they can recommend someone.

– Lastly, check out freelancing websites like Upwork and Freelancer which offer competitive rates from experienced professionals as well as new talent just starting out in the industry.

The art of storyboarding is an essential part of filmmaking.

It helps the director to visualize and communicate their thoughts with clarity, while also providing important feedback for the rest of the production.

Storyboard artists are able to take that process one step further by using their artistic abilities to create a visual representation of what will be seen in the film.

This can help with creative problems or even just more efficiently convey ideas from different departments on set.

The cost for these services varies depending on location, experience level, company size, and other factors.

Best Online Storyboarding Software

Let’s jump right into our list.

How to pick storyboard software

Tools in this guide

1. Makestoryboard

As a content creator who has to deal with thriving ideas, you will need convenient assistance in putting these ideas into a proper plan before execution.

MakeStoryboard serves this purpose. It’s a collaborative storyboarding software made for creating and sharing your captivating storyboards.

MakeStoryboard software helps you in early-stage planning, drawing drafts frame-by-frame, and collaborating with your team members. Thanks to vast options of tools, you can impress yourself with how detailed your plan can be.

A Powerful Drawing Tool with well-known features for any creator. Animatic Tool makes your storyboard more dynamic by adding animation or playing the frames one by one.

Sketching and animating isn’t a daunting task to perform, and it’s totally free.

Script Editor assists you in every stage. With its functions, you’re able to shoot specific angles, mark up frames by time, add voiceover, calculate the duration of your video and add subtitles.

And don’t worry about converting your storyboard file. MakeStoryboards has you covered.

With its built-in PDF converter tool you can manage the layout and add the logo of your brand. You can also create a secure review link to get client feedback fast.

2. Storyboarder

Ever wanted to make a comic book and animate your own story? With Storyboarder, you can do just that.

It allows you to sketch out your drawings and add captions.

The app is easy to use for beginners but has advanced features like layers, color palettes, and symbols, if you’re more experienced. You can also import graphics from other apps or create them yourself using Storyboarder tools.

Now go forth and become the next great graphic artist!

Storyboarder

Storyboarder is open source and free, making it one of your best options if you’re working with a smaller budget. The program has a clean interface with all the necessary tools at your disposal, so it’s easy to quickly draw shapes and characters.

Use Storyboarder

3. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro is a program used to create storyboards, animatics, and other pre-production work for animation, like video presentations. It has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to use.

Unlike similar programs, Toon Boom Storyboard Pro offers users the ability to import various file types such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel Draw files which allows you to import your own assets into your project.

I recommend this software because of its intuitive interface and ability to import various file types.

There are many different features within the software which allow you to customize your work in order to best suit your needs.

For example, there are over 2000 pre-set layouts and templates for boards of all shapes and sizes as well as a library of more than 1000 backgrounds from around the world.

Additionally, there are tools available such as color palettes, paintbrushes, and stickers which make it possible for you to add custom effects or personal touches on top of what’s already been set up by default.

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

This an all-in-one storyboard solution combines drawing, scripting, camera controls, animatic creation capabilities and sound. [PRODUCT_AD:filmmakers-ultimate-toolkit||best-storyboard-software|mid|1]

Use Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

4. Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is a great software that helps people edit their photos. It contains many different tools and features, which can be used to make pictures more interesting or less complicated.

For example, if someone wants to remove an object from a picture, they could use Photoshop’s Clone Stamp Tool and its Spot Healing Brush.

What do you think?

Adobe Photoshop is a digital image editing software program that is used by professionals and hobbyists alike. It’s been around since the mid 1990s, when it was first introduced to the public on an affordable CD-ROM.

Adobe Photoshop has evolved over time with each new release of the software and continues to be used today because of its powerful features, accessibility, and affordability for both personal and professional use.

Adobe Photoshop

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Use Adobe Photoshop

5. Storyboard Fountain

Storyboard Fountain is a Mac app that lets you create storyboards for your screenplays and scripts. It’s designed to be used with Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro X, or Motion 5.

Storyboard Fountain integrates with Final Draft and Fountain, two popular screenwriting tools, so you can open your script in Storyboard Fountain and choose the scenes you want to storyboard.

Then, it generates a storyboard template for each scene in the script. You can print out the templates, sketch your boards on paper, or import them into Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro X, or Motion 5 and create the boards digitally there.

Once your boards are done, you can export them as a PDF (with each frame on its own page), an image sequence (one image file per frame), or an XML file that stores your storyboards in a format compatible with FCPX and Motion 5.

You can also export a video file that includes all of your frames strung together into one movie clip.

If you’re using Adobe After Effects to do digital storyboarding, Storyboard Fountain makes it easy for you to import your boards into After Effects without having to re-create the scenes from scratch.

6. Boords

Boords is a web-based storyboarding app that helps you create and collaborate on storyboards.

Boords makes it easy to create an online storyboard in seconds. Simply drag and drop images onto a canvas, draw on each frame, add notes and share your board with others.

Slick, simple, and free to use, Boords is one of the best online storyboard creators for creatives looking to get their ideas down quickly.

7. Frameforge

What is FrameForge? FrameForge is optically correct 3D previz and storyboard software for planning shots in a virtual set before you shoot.

It is commercial software (Core and Pro editions are paid; a free trial is typically available), not a free forever download.

FrameForge is a software application that assists in the planning, designing, and construction of set frames for Hollywood productions. It is used to plan layouts, determine effects sequences, create storyboards, and generate cost estimates.

Frame Forge has been adopted by many studios including Pixar Animation Studios and Framestore CFC.

8. Prolost Boardo For After Effects

Prolost Boardo is a set of Adobe After Effects animation presets for turning still storyboard frames into a moving board-o-matic—without hand-keyframing every camera move.

Apply Boardo to your storyboard layers to automate pan, tilt, zoom, and Dutch-angle moves, optional camera shake, and simple cross-dissolves when shots overlap on the timeline.

It works with storyboard images from any source (including iPad-drawn boards), and companion presets like Oscillate and Fader help cycle or fade between drawings for quick animatic polish.

9. Clip Studio Paint

If you are looking for a paid but comparatively affordable drawing program for digital storyboards, comics, and paintings, Clip Studio Paint is a strong option. It offers many illustration features associated with tools like Photoshop, with PRO and EX licenses (subscription or perpetual) plus a time-limited free trial—not a permanently free app.

If you’re looking for an affordable alternative to Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop but don’t want to sacrifice quality, look no further than Clip Studio Paint!

With tons of free tutorials available on YouTube and a simple user interface that anyone can learn in minutes, it’s never been easier to get started with this amazing drawing app.

Artists have been using Clip Studio Paint for years to create their masterpieces.

It has a lot of the same features as Photoshop and Illustrator, but is much more affordable. If you’re an aspiring artist looking for your first graphics software, this is it!

Clip Studio Paint can be used on Windows or Mac computers and iPads, making it extremely versatile.

10. Storyboardthat

StoryboardThat is one of the best ways to create storyboards for your business and get feedback before making a final product. With its drag-and-drop interface, you can easily create boards in minutes that will save you hours of work.

StoryboardThat is a web-based, user-friendly software that allows you to create storyboards for any type of media. There are many different templates available and the site has tutorials to help you get started.

Have you ever tried to make a storyboard for your next big presentation but found it difficult to get started? StoryboardThat is an interactive, drag and drop web application that lets you create professional-looking storyboards with ease.

It’s as simple as dragging images from the library onto individual panels of your storyboard.

You can organize your content into scenes or use the default layout, which includes a title panel at the top followed by three rows of six slides each.

11. Opentoonz

OpenToonz is free, open-source 2D animation software based on Toonz (from Digital Video), long customized by Studio Ghibli and released openly by Dwango. It has been used extensively for television shows and films.

It can be used free of charge for commercial and non-commercial projects—no license key is required. Current stable releases are in the 1.x line (for example OpenToonz 1.8) and support raster and vector production workflows.

OpenToonz supports many different file formats including SVG, EPS, PDF or PSD files which can be imported into the application with ease from most major computer operating systems such as Windows, macOS, or Linux.

With OpenToonz you can create animations with traditional tweening techniques without having to use complicated equations making it easy to animate
OpenToonz is an open-source animation program for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is not built on Blender; it is its own Toonz-based toolset created to help those wanting to make animated movies with a more stable workflow.

12. Krita

Krita is a free and open-source digital painting application. Users can paint, sketch, create concept art, or edit photos with Krita’s brush engine.

The brushes are created using the Qt’s declarative scripting language, which allows for easy modification of existing brush engines or development of new ones.

Krita also offers support for plugins to expand its functionality such as G’Mic filters and 3D models import.

For more information on how to get started with Krita visit krita.org
You can use Krita for sketching and painting digitally. It was the first application built by Krita Foundation, an organization made to promote digital art.

The app’s interface is intuitive and easy to use with powerful tools such as blending modes, filters, vector layers, brushes that simulate natural media, and selection tools that can be customized.

13. Mischief

Mischief was a Mac and Windows drawing app built around a genuinely infinite, zoomable canvas, which made it popular for freeform storyboarding, thumbnailing, and mind-mapping without ever having to worry about running out of page.

Its developer, The Foundry, discontinued Mischief in August 2019 and it is no longer sold or supported, so it's included here for reference rather than as an active recommendation. Existing licence holders can still run the software they already own, but new storyboard artists should look at one of the actively maintained tools above instead.

14. Tvpaint

TVPaint is an excellent bitmap 2D animation software for movie and TV production studios. It provides many features that are essential to animating on the job, including intuitive drawing tools, a timeline/xsheet workflow, and tools for sharing work with other artists.

TVPaint has been used in movies such as Minions (2015), Inside Out (2015), and The Jungle Book (2016).

TVPaint is a professional package for frame-by-frame bitmap animation rather than a vector comics or games suite.

In order to use TVPaint, an artist needs a drawing tablet or pen input device (such as Wacom). Current versions support Windows and macOS (and Linux on supported distributions).