The Best App to Write a Book: Word, Google Docs, Notion, Obsidian, Scrivener and Skrib
Word, Google Docs, Notion, Obsidian, Scrivener and Skrib compared for novelists: real prices, what each is best at, and where each one strains on a book.
The best app depends on which part of the book is going wrong
No single app is best for writing a book: Scrivener holds the whole project for $59.99 once, Word makes the file an agent asks for, Google Docs is where other people read you, Notion is the strongest story bible, Obsidian is the strongest research vault, and Skrib keeps the plan, the research and the draft in one project. Every one of them has finished books in it, so this is about fit, not quality.
One of the six is ours. We make Skrib, so read its row the way you would read any company describing itself, and note that it carries the same two columns as everything else, including the one about where it strains. Prices are US list, checked in August 2026.
Tool | Best at | Price (US) | Where it strains on a novel |
|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft Word | Manuscript format, styles and track changes at any length | $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr for Microsoft 365 Personal; $179.99 one time for Office Home 2024 | Nowhere to plan; research sits in other applications |
Google Docs | Sharing, comments and automatic version history | Free with a Google account | One long document gets slow; hard cap of 1.02 million characters |
Notion | A story bible: linked databases of characters, scenes, locations | Free for one person; Plus $10 per seat monthly | Long prose pages get heavy; no manuscript view; export takes work |
Obsidian | Research and worldbuilding you own as plain text on your disk | Free; commercial licence now optional | No manuscript view without a community plugin |
Scrivener | Holding plan, research and draft in one project | $59.99 macOS, $59.99 Windows, $23.99 iOS, one time each | Learning curve, Compile, and strict sync order across devices |
Skrib | The same three in one project, with the Board beside the Draft in split screen | 7-day free trial; $6 a month billed annually; $200 once | Browser only, so no offline desktop app and no phone app |
A novel lives in three places at once
A novel lives in the plan, the research and the draft at the same time, and most apps hold one of those well and keep the other two in a different window. Nine months in there are four documents, a Notion page you stopped updating, a folder of PDFs about nineteenth century shipping, and two lines on your phone from a train. Then the parts drift: you change the ending in the draft and the outline still describes the old one, and the source that fixes chapter eleven sits in an app you have not opened since June. Nothing is lost. It sits far enough away that you stop checking.
The distance is what does the damage. Skrib holds the plan, the research and the page in one project, the Board beside the Draft in split screen, so the outline you are contradicting is on screen while you contradict it.
What "best" actually depends on
Best depends on where you are in the book, whether you plan before you draft, and how much research it carries. If you are drafting and nothing else, the app barely matters. If you plan heavily, a document is not a planning surface; Scrivener's corkboard, Notion's databases and Obsidian's links answer that three ways, depending on whether you think in cards, tables or connections. Only Scrivener charges once and stops, about $121.93 for all three. Finishing is mostly friction, so the best app is the one you still open in month eleven.
If research is the heavy part, the test is what happens when you check a line you cited in March. Sources sit in the Skrib Library beside the Draft, and Citation Teleport opens one at the highlighted passage rather than at the top of the file.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Scrivener worth it for beginners?
Yes, if you will spend a week on the binder, the corkboard and Compile first. The trial runs 30 days of use, not calendar days.
Can you write a whole book in Google Docs?
Yes. Writing a book in Google Docs has one hard limit, 1.02 million characters per document, around 170,000 words; document tabs let one file carry up to 100 tabs.
Is there a Microsoft Word book template?
Not an official one for novels; Word's Book fold setting is for printing folded booklets. William Shunn's free Novel Manuscript.dotx is what editors recognise.
Keep the Plan, the Research and the Draft in One Project in Skrib
The drift is the problem, not the typing. Pick the novel project type, then drag in the .docx and the shipping PDFs: Smart Import asks whether to replace the draft, start a new one or insert, and scanned pages are read with OCR, so the sources are searchable next to chapter eleven. Skrib runs in a browser, with no offline desktop app and no phone app, so the two lines that arrive on a train get pasted in later.
The part worth closing is the distance between the three.
