# Scribus Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra > With the help of Capterra, learn about Scribus Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Publishing and Subscriptions products and more. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/230120/Scribus/alternatives --- # Scribus Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on March 13, 2026 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) Scribus ## What is Scribus? An open-source desktop publishing solution that allows media and publishing firms create documents for print publications using a page layout system. ## What is Scribus used for? [Publishing and Subscriptions](https://www.capterra.com/publishing-and-subscriptions-software/) Overall rating Based on 19 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive \- Neutral \- Negative \- Contact vendor for pricing Free trial not available Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Do you work for Scribus?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=https://www.scribus.net&name=Scribus) ## Compare with a popular alternative Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status. ### Scribus 4.4 (19) VS. [### Yumpu](https://www.capterra.com/p/210366/Yumpu/) [4.4 (25)](https://www.capterra.com/p/210366/Yumpu/reviews/) Starting Price Contact vendor Starting Price $19.95 Other, Per Month Free Trial Free Version Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version Ease Of Use 4.1 (19) Ease Of Use 4.5 (25) Value For Money 4.6 (16) Value For Money 3.9 (22) Customer Service 3.4 (9) Customer Service 3.9 (23) ## Scribus alternatives [Naviga](https://www.capterra.com/p/187953/Naviga/) [4.0 (1)](https://www.capterra.com/p/187953/Naviga/#reviews) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/187953/Naviga/) Highest Rated [Publishing Manager](https://www.capterra.com/p/39228/Publishing-Manager/) [4.5 (2)](https://www.capterra.com/p/39228/Publishing-Manager/#reviews) Starting price $20000.00 Per User, Per Month [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/39228/Publishing-Manager/) [XEditPro](https://www.capterra.com/p/177406/XEditPro/) [0.0](https://www.capterra.com/p/177406/XEditPro/#reviews) Starting price $2500.00 Per User, Per Month [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/177406/XEditPro/) [JJK](https://www.capterra.com/p/215248/JJK/) [0.0](https://www.capterra.com/p/215248/JJK/#reviews) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/215248/JJK/) ## Features Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically. Collaboration Tools 4.2 (6) 66.67% of 6 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Provides a channel for team members to share media files, communicate, and work together Data Visualization 4.6 (5) 60.00% of 5 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Graphical representation of data Activity Tracking 3.5 (4) 75.00% of 4 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Track and document all activities across devices, networks, and other systems Subscription Management 3.3 (4) 75.00% of 4 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Process of managing customer subscription lifecycle for a recurring service or a product API Application programming interface that allows for integration with other systems/databases Document Storage Store and organize documents in a centralized system Scribus 8 features Track and document all activities across devices, networks, and other systems Application programming interface that allows for integration with other systems/databases Provides a channel for team members to share media files, communicate, and work together Graphical representation of data Store and organize documents in a centralized system For magazine publishers For newsletter publishers Process of managing customer subscription lifecycle for a recurring service or a product Features 4.2 (19) 4.2 Based on 19 reviews ## Pricing Value for money 4.6 (16) ### Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Free trial available Value for money 4.6 (16) 4.6 Based on 16 reviews ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 3.4 (9) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 3.4 (9) 3.4 Based on 9 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 4.4 Based on 19 reviews Filter by rating 5(11) 4(7) 3(0) 2(0) 1(1) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent JG Joseph G. Type Setter Accounting ### "It does not get much better then this" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 July 25, 2025 I h ave experience as a typesetter. So I used to use PageMaker but You can not get page maker any more and Microsoft has finished trying to sell Publisher Pros value for money, customer support, ease of use, web site creation. I have yet to use it every day but I am hoping to make a web page with it. Cons It was hard to find on the net and I miss ms publisher. I have yet to use it every day but I am hoping to make a web page with it. Switched from [Microsoft Publisher](https://www.capterra.com/p/233254/Microsoft-Publisher/) Publisher is too expensive and it is being discontinued Alternatives considered [Microsoft Publisher](https://www.capterra.com/p/233254/Microsoft-Publisher/) Reasons for choosing Scribus price is right, I think I will stick with this product Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Fray Agustin G. Director de albergue Civic & Social Organization ### "Diseño editorial gratuito" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 September 28, 2024 Pros Sirve para maquetación editorial, fácil de utilizar y cuenta con una gran comunidad de aprendizaje Cons Crear continuidad del texto es algo complicado, al igual que la paginación Switched from [Adobe InDesign](https://www.capterra.com/p/233314/Adobe-InDesign/) Por motivos de licenciamiento, trabajo en varios con varios equipos de computo y es necesario tener una herramienta accesible en todos ellos Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. DF Debbie F. creative Marketing and Advertising ### "Too many bugs. Unusable." 1.0 Overall Rating 1.0 1.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 1.0 1.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 1/10 February 8, 2024 This product used to be decent. Now it's unusable and I paid for this. Terrible. Pros None. I used to use Scribus, now it's unusable with text flow bugs. Cons Type won't flow properly in a text frame. Words are separated with no logic or properly placed hyphen when a sentence comes to the end of a text frame. I've spent way too much time researching and trying to "fix" this. The work around is to force a return where you want the sentence to break. It's basically unusable. This is NOT the free trial, I have paid for this. I'm finding other people are having this issue. I have since read that it won't work on a Mac M1. That information should have been listed prior to me paying for this. I'll have to go back to paying $$$$ for InDesign. At least I know that'll work! Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. JG James G. Library Tech Libraries ### "Scribus - Great open-source tool for preparing small to medium sized publications." 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 7/10 October 18, 2023 I actually use Inkscape for graphics layout work for posters and flyers. When the project requires multi page layouts and more complex text handling Scribus has fit our needs well. I spent 12 years as a part-time technology teacher in a small private school. We used scribus each year to design and then publish the school's yearbook, so it can handle quite complex tasks. In my current position I handle most of the graphics design and publishing tasks for our small public library. I work from both home and onsite so the flexible licensing is very important to me. Our budget can't match those of larger libraries so the cost savings of using open-source helps us direct finances to more important needs at the library. Pros The open source licensing allows us to use this on each of our staff computers for free, plus it can be installed on laptops or home computers for the staff to use outside of the office. It is powerful and flexible enough to do the simple brochures and booklets that we need here at the library. It also gives me a higher confidence that years down the road the files will still be useable and the software still available. I can't say the same for some older archive files we have that were created in proprietary software that either no longer exists or is prohibitively expensive. Cons The features we need are present, but the user interface can still be a little bit rough compared to low to mid-range commercial Desktop Publishing software. Some of the staff are still most comfortable using Microsoft Publisher for their tasks. Switched from [Microsoft Publisher](https://www.capterra.com/p/233254/Microsoft-Publisher/) More flexible licensing so we can install on all our computers at no cost. Scribus uses a non-proprietary xml file format so text content can be recovered even if Scribus becomes unavailable or unusable in the future. Alternatives considered [Affinity Publisher](https://www.capterra.com/p/229592/Affinity-Publisher/) [Microsoft Publisher](https://www.capterra.com/p/233254/Microsoft-Publisher/) Reasons for choosing Scribus For the same reason that we switched from primarily using Microsoft Publisher. Scribus offers an open xml format that should be readable in the long-term future. The open-source licensing cuts down on our technology budget allowing us to allocate the money to more important needs for the library. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Gabriele R. amateur things-maker Writing and Editing ### "Scribus has been an important part of my open source suite of software for years!" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 October 6, 2023 Pros Scribus is useful, easy to learn but deep enough to be an important tool for creativity! Cons Maybe it's a bit rough around the edges, sometimes... Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. NR Nick R. Sole proprietor Publishing ### "Have been happy using the 1.5 branch for years" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 October 5, 2023 Scribus, and especially using the Python API, is enabling me to create publishing-quality puzzle images and puzzle books (though I still have some work to do on that) very efficiently and consistently.There are definitely hurdles to overcome using the API, but in the end it is that API that is enabling me to scale my puzzle creation business in a way that would not be viable using any interactive desktop publishing GUI simply because of the time it takes doing stuff with mouse clicks and manual fiddling. Pros Currently using Scribus 1.5.8 (in Ubuntu), it supports everything I need to create high quality Begriddled puzzle books, as PDFs suitable for KDP and Ingramspark, etc, and publishing quality PNG and JPEG puzzle images (that include text) that can be included as-is in magazines,etc, or used on products.Although currently 1.5 is considered the development branch, and 1.4 the stable one, the reality is that 1.5 is better than 1.4, is very stable, and suitable for production use (as I have been using it) for years.More recently I have started to use the python API to create documents (including books) programmatically rather than do it manually via the Scribus GUI. Although I found this not so easy at first, once I found decent 1.5 documentation (I use impagina.org/scribus-scripter-api) and got up to speed with it, it opened up a whole new dimension of automation possibilities. It is not perfect, but scripting in Python 3, I have so far always been able to work around limitations. Cons The Python API is not well documented and there are not many good script examples. Most examples you can find are outdated and simply don't work now because they use Python 2 instead of 3, or were created for Scribus 1.4.Some things that are straightforward in the GUI require some trickery to automate. Eg I found rotating an object around its centre, easy to do in the GUI, quite a challenge. But having got that working with the help of ChatGPT to develop an algorithm to do it using only the features provided by the API, I won't have to write that function again.Some issues have to be worked around. The only way I found to make some changes "stick" and be properly visible in the GUI was to save and re-open the document. This is straightforward in the API, but it took me some time to discover this worked as a workaround.But the good thing is that once you've solved an issue and incorporated that in your scripting, you can re-use that without having to solve the problem again.Another example was wanting individual pages in a document to have different dimensions. It's an unusual thing to want to do, but it was useful for me to be able to generate differently sized images for a puzzle and its solution. You can do it in the GUI. The way I found to do it programmatically was to create a new document with the new size, and import that back in to the main document. It works well, but you shouldn't have to work around limitations in this way. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. BG Benjamin G. Research engineer Research ### "Excellent publishing software" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 June 15, 2023 Nothing to complain about for a free software application that's easy to use (even for professionals). Pros Almost the only free, open-source desktop publishing software with a graphical user interface! Professional work is easy to do. Cons Occasional crashes, some bugs with the text editing interface, which is not taken into account in the history. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AU Anonymous User Programmer Computer Software ### "scribus open source" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 May 15, 2023 Pros \- PDF support- open source- wide range of tools and features for layout and design- pritty large community Cons \- can be more challenging to learn- limited templates- Scribus may encounter occasional stability issues, such as crashes or glitches Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. CF Cheikh F. Multimedia Content Creator Media Production ### "My Experience with Scribus for Document Creation" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 May 5, 2023 Overall, my experience with Scribus has been generally positive. I'm impressed with the features of this desktop publishing software. It has enabled me to create professional documents efficiently and effortlessly. I would recommend Scribus to anyone looking for a reliable tool for creating professional documents Pros I recently used Scribus to create documents and I must say that I was impressed by its features. What I like most about this software is its ability to seamlessly handle different types of content such as images, text, tables, and graphs. The layout is intuitive and it's easy to customize the elements to achieve a professional final output. Cons However, I have to admit that I encountered some issues when using Scribus. Firstly, there are times when images don't display correctly, which can be quite frustrating. Additionally, the exporting process can take some time, which can slow down the workflow. Although these issues are minor, they can still impede the user's efficiency. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. PW Paavo W. Systemadministrator Civil Engineering ### "Ein übersichtliches aber gutes Programm" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 January 23, 2023 Es ist ein gutes Programm, wodurch man Bilder und Text super einfach und schön zusammenschieben und bearbeiten kann. Es erfüllt alle Anforderungen die ich brauche und ist einfach, aber dennoch mit einer großen Palette von Funktionen gesegnet. Pros Meiner Meinung nach ist das Einfügen von Bildern, sowie die Textfelder die wichtigste Funktion. Beides ist leicht verständlich und schon nach ein paar Minuten weiß man, wie man die wichtigsten Funktionen benutzen kann. Cons Für meine Zwecke hatte die Software alle notwendigen Funktionen. Deshalb habe ich keine Funktion, die schlecht wäre. Reasons for choosing Scribus Mir wurde es von einem Bekannten vorgeschlagen, da er diese Software auch verwendet. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. [View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/230120/Scribus/reviews/) Independent research methodology Capterra's researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. While we may earn a referral fee when you visit a provider through our links or speak to an advisor, this has no influence on our research or methodology. 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