Storyboarder

Storyboarder is the open-source storyboarding tool maintained by Wonder Unit (an Adobe-affiliated project), first released in August 2017, licensed under MIT, and written primarily in JavaScript (Electron desktop app). Positioned as a "zero-cost alternative to professional animation / film pre-production storyboards", it targets independent animators, short-video creators, advertising storyboard artists, and teachers producing courseware. Provides a canvas + shot list + metadata (shot type / camera movement / duration / dialogue) trio, with export to PDF storyboard sheets / Final Draft / Premiere timeline / OPL (Open Production Lib) / GIF preview.

Core capabilities center on "hand-drawn storyboarding + shot metadata + workflow integration". Canvas: Konva.js-based canvas with pressure-sensitive pen (Wacom) support + layers + undo stack + multi-frame batch drawing. AI sketch enhancement (Stability Diffusion integration since 2023): input a description to auto-generate reference frame sketches for human secondary editing (not fully automated). Shot metadata: each frame can record shot type (wide / medium / close-up), camera movement (push / pull / pan / track / follow / static), duration, dialogue, and sound effect tags. Export formats: PDF storyboard sheets (industry standard), Final Draft script format, Premiere timeline (drag into editing), OPL (open animation production metadata), GIF preview. Ecosystem: loosely coupled with Adobe creative suite (not officially supported by Adobe, but PS / AI resources can be imported).

Use cases include: independent animator pre-production storyboarding (alongside TVPaint / OpenToonz / Blender Grease Pencil), short-video script storyboarding (alongside MoneyPrinterTurbo / ShortGPT), advertising storyboarding (integrated with pitch decks), and teaching courseware visualization (alongside OBS / recording). Hardware floor: Electron desktop app, Windows / macOS / Linux all supported, minimum 4GB RAM; GPU only recommended when enabling AI sketch (NVIDIA 6GB+). Onboarding: download GitHub Releases installer → open → new storyboard → choose frame count + shot template → draw + fill metadata → export PDF / Premiere.

Licensed under MIT, allows commercial closed-source use, modification, and redistribution. Positioning versus VisLane's already-listed OpenMontage (Agentic video production), MoneyPrinterTurbo (Chinese one-stop short video), and toonflow (short-drama Agent): Storyboarder is a "pre-production storyboard independent tool"; OpenMontage is "end-to-end Agent pipeline" (its internal storyboarding is auto-generated, not a standalone module); MoneyPrinterTurbo / ShortGPT are "post-production one-stop synthesis" (don't cover pre-production storyboarding); toonflow is "short-drama full-pipeline Agent" (storyboarding is a sub-step but closed). The four cover the "storyboarding" stage as follows: Storyboarder is independent and professional, OpenMontage / toonflow embed storyboarding in their Agent flow, MoneyPrinterTurbo / ShortGPT don't cover it. Storyboarder's inclusion will fill the zero-association gap for the storyboard tag and provide an independent option for the "pre-production storyboarding tools" use case topic.