World Anvil is one of the biggest names in worldbuilding software, and for good reason.
It gives you a massive collection of tools for building fictional worlds.
But if you’re a fantasy writer looking for World Anvil alternatives, there are plenty of options that may be a better fit for you.
I've rounded up some of the best options, from all-in-one writing apps to completely free worldbuilding tools.
The best World Anvil alternatives at a glance
|
Tool |
Best for |
Worldbuilding |
Story planning |
Novel writing |
Free option |
|
Quill&Steel OS |
Fantasy writers |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
14-day free trial |
|
Campfire Writing |
Modular worldbuilding |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ Limited |
|
LegendKeeper |
Visual worldbuilding |
✓ |
Limited |
— |
14-day free trial |
|
Notion |
Customization |
✓ |
✓ |
Possible |
✓ |
|
Obsidian |
Offline worldbuilding |
✓ |
With setup |
Possible |
✓ |
|
Kanka |
Wiki-style worldbuilding |
✓ |
Limited |
— |
✓ |
|
Scrivener |
Manuscript writing |
Basic |
✓ |
✓ |
Free trial |
Why look for a World Anvil alternative?
World Anvil is an incredibly detailed platform. You can create articles about practically anything in your world, upload maps, build timelines and calendars, organize family trees, write your manuscript, and even publish parts of your world for other people to explore.
The flip side is that not every fantasy writer needs all of that.
World Anvil also caters pretty heavily to tabletop RPG creators. If you're writing a fantasy novel, you may not care about RPG character sheets, campaign management, player permissions, stat blocks, or some of its more advanced publishing features.
You might be looking for an alternative because:
- You want a simpler interface with less of a learning curve
- You want more focus on plotting and planning your novel
- You want your worldbuilding, story planning, and manuscript together
- You don't need all the TTRPG and campaign-management features
- You want more control over how your information is organized
- You're looking for a free alternative to World Anvil
To tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s really one single best worldbuilding app.
I think there are apps that are better for different types of worldbuilders.
So, let's look at your options.
1. Quill&Steel OS: Best World Anvil alternative for fantasy writers
Best for: Fantasy writers who want to worldbuild, plan their story, and write their novel in the same app.
I'm obviously a little biased here because I built Quill&Steel OS.
But I built it because I'd spent years a) building my owns worlds and b) creating worldbuilding resources for other fantasy writers, using various combinations of writing apps, worldbuilding tools, spreadsheets, documents, and Notion.
Now, I finally decided to make a custom app for fantasy writers (and myself) where they could go from idea to worldbuilding to planning to drafting, in one place.
So that's what Quill&Steel OS does.
Key features
- Interconnected worldbuilding wiki with 13 article types
- Guided prompts and examples
- Locations and interactive maps
- Built-in map maker with pins
- Characters and deities
- Automatic family trees
- Relationship web
- Magic systems and artifacts
- Creatures
- Cultures, species, religions, organizations, languages, and more
- Travel distance calculator
- In-world calendar
- World timeline
- Plot outlines with built-in prompts
- Scene and chapter planning
- Character arc planning
- Plot hole tracker
- Full manuscript editor
- Word count and writing session tracking
- DOCX import
- DOCX, PDF, and EPUB export
Compared to World Anvil: Quill&Steel OS is more focused on the fantasy novel-writing process, with worldbuilding, plotting, scene and chapter planning, and manuscript writing all built into the same workflow. World Anvil is the stronger choice if you want extensive TTRPG tools or a highly customizable public-facing world wiki.
Pricing: Quill&Steel OS starts at $8.99/month, with a 14-day free trial (no credit card required).
2. Campfire Writing: Best for modular worldbuilding
Best for: Writers who want lots of dedicated worldbuilding features and control over which tools they use.
Campfire is probably one of the closest World Anvil alternatives if you're specifically looking for software built for writers.
It's somewhere between a worldbuilding app and a novel-writing app, with a pretty impressive collection of modules covering both.
You can create characters, locations, magic systems, cultures, religions, species, maps, timelines, relationships, and encyclopedic articles. Then there are writing-focused modules for your manuscript, character arcs, research, and more.
Key features
- Character profiles
- Locations
- Magic systems
- Species and cultures
- Religions and philosophies
- Timelines
- Maps
- Calendars
- Character arcs
- Relationship webs
- Encyclopedia
- Manuscript editor
- Research organization
Compared to World Anvil: Campfire is more focused on fiction writers and offers a flexible, modular approach to worldbuilding and writing. World Anvil has stronger wiki, publishing, and TTRPG features.
Pricing: Campfire has a free plan with limited access to all modules. Unlimited access starts at $12/month, with annual, lifetime, and custom plans also available.
3. LegendKeeper: Best for visual worldbuilding
Best for: Visual worldbuilders who want to explore their world through maps, wikis, timelines, and whiteboards.
If World Anvil feels like way too much, LegendKeeper takes a somewhat different approach.
Its interface is clean and relatively free-form, and the app lets you create wikis that you can structure however you want.
In terms of its powerful visual tools, you can upload large maps, create pins that connect directly to wiki pages, nest maps inside one another, build timelines, and use whiteboards to visually connect ideas.
Key features
- World wiki
- Automatic page linking
- Interactive maps
- Nested maps
- Timelines
- Custom calendars
- Whiteboards
- Templates
- Tags
- Real-time collaboration
- Offline support
- Public sharing
Compared to World Anvil: LegendKeeper gives you a cleaner, more free-form experience, with strong visual tools. World Anvil has more specialized and structured worldbuilding features.
Pricing: LegendKeeper offers a 14-day free trial. Its Pro plan costs $9/month or $90/year at the time of writing.
4. Notion: Best customizable World Anvil alternative
Best for: Writers who want complete control over how their worldbuilding system works.
Ok, Notion isn't technically a worldbuilding app at all. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Notion is a flexible workspace made up of pages, databases, properties, filters, views, and relationships. So with the right setup, you can turn those tools into a very powerful worldbuilding system.
You could have a database for characters, another for locations, another for cultures, another for scenes, and then connect all of them together.
Key features
- Custom databases
- Database relationships
- Custom properties
- Multiple database views
- Wiki-style pages
- Templates
- Web and mobile apps
- Free plan
- Huge template ecosystem
Compared to World Anvil: Notion gives you far more freedom to customize your setup, but you'll need to build that setup yourself (or use a template). World Anvil gives you dedicated worldbuilding tools right out of the box.
If the setup sounds like an absolute nightmare, I've already done it for you. My Notion Worldbuilding & Story Planning Template includes interconnected databases, character templates, a magic system builder, plot outlines, scene and chapter planners, and writing trackers.
Pricing: Notion's individual Free plan includes its core pages and database functionality (and works with my template). Paid plans are available if you need additional features.
5. Obsidian: Best offline World Anvil alternative
Best for: Writers who want their worldbuilding stored locally and don't mind tinkering with their setup.
Obsidian has become incredibly popular with writers and worldbuilders, especially with people who want more control over their files.
At its core, it's a Markdown-based note-taking/knowledge base app.
The value comes from linking those notes together.
You can create a note for a character, link it to a city, connect that city to a kingdom, link the kingdom to its religion, and before you know it, you’ve created a network of interconnected lore that you can visualize via its Graph View.
Key features
- Linked notes
- Graph View (main appeal)
- Markdown files
- Local file storage (also main appeal)
- Tags
- Templates
- Community plugins
- Highly customizable workspace
Compared to World Anvil: Obsidian gives you local file storage, offline access, and extensive customization, but requires considerably more setup. World Anvil is ready for worldbuilding as soon as you open it.
Pricing: Obsidian is free for personal use, with optional paid services and commercial licensing.
6. Kanka: Best free wiki-style World Anvil alternative
Best for: Worldbuilders looking for a free, dedicated worldbuilding platform.
If you're looking for the best free alternative to World Anvil, Kanka is one of the strongest options to consider.
It's a dedicated worldbuilding and TTRPG campaign-management platform, so you'll find many of the same broad categories of tools: characters, locations, organizations, maps, calendars, timelines, relationships, journals, quests, and more.
Its core features are also free.
Key features
- Characters
- Locations
- Organizations
- Maps
- Timelines
- Calendars
- Relationships
- Journals
- Quests
- Rich-text editor
- Collaboration
- Unlimited campaigns and entries on the free plan
Compared to World Anvil: Kanka gives you a generous free plan and many of the same core wiki-style worldbuilding tools. World Anvil offers a much broader and more advanced feature set.
Pricing: Kanka's core plan is free. Paid plans are available for premium campaigns and additional features.
7. Scrivener: Best for manuscript-focused fantasy writers
Best for: Writers whose main goal is to plan and write their novel, with their research and worldbuilding nearby.
Scrivener is the odd one out on this list because it's not a direct World Anvil competitor.
It's a writing app.
But if you're searching for a World Anvil alternative because you're less interested in creating a giant world wiki and more interested in actually getting your novel written, it's worth considering.
Key features
- Full manuscript editor
- Chapter and scene organization
- Corkboard
- Outliner
- Research storage
- Character and setting notes
- Custom metadata
- Compile/export tools
Compared to World Anvil: Scrivener is much more focused on organizing and writing your manuscript, while World Anvil offers far more dedicated tools for actually building your world.
Pricing: Scrivener costs $59.99 as a one-time purchase for Mac or Windows. A 30-day free trial is available.
Which World Anvil alternative is best for you?
So which one should you actually use?
If you're a fantasy writer who wants everything in one app: Quill&Steel OS gives you dedicated worldbuilding, story planning, and manuscript-writing tools in one place.
If you want lots of detailed worldbuilding modules: Campfire is one of the closest writer-focused alternatives.
If you're a visual worldbuilder: LegendKeeper's maps, timelines, and whiteboards are hard to beat.
If you want complete customization: Notion lets you build practically any worldbuilding system you can imagine.
If you want local files and offline access: Obsidian is one of the strongest options.
If you want a free dedicated worldbuilding platform: Kanka gives you a surprisingly large amount without paying.
If you're more concerned with writing your novel than building your world: Scrivener may be all you actually need.
Start your 14-day Quill&Steel OS free trial →
FAQs about World Anvil alternatives
What is the best alternative to World Anvil?
For fantasy novelists, Quill&Steel OS is one of the strongest World Anvil alternatives because it combines detailed worldbuilding with story planning and novel writing. But the best option depends on what you're looking for. Campfire is great for modular worldbuilding, LegendKeeper for visual worldbuilding, Notion for customization, Obsidian for local files, Kanka for a free wiki-style platform, and Scrivener for manuscript-focused writers.
What is the best free alternative to World Anvil?
Kanka is one of the best free alternatives to World Anvil if you want a dedicated worldbuilding platform, with characters, locations, maps, timelines, calendars, relationships, and more. If you'd rather have complete customization, Notion and Obsidian are also strong free options, although both require more setup.
Is World Anvil good for writing a novel?
Yes. World Anvil isn't just a TTRPG worldbuilding tool. Its paid Master plan and above include Manuscripts, which lets writers plot, write, edit, organize scenes and chapters, and export their work. The downside is that some novelists may find the platform more extensive than they need, particularly if they don't use its TTRPG, publishing, or advanced world-management features.
Is Campfire better than World Anvil?
It depends on what you're using it for. Campfire is more focused on authors and combines its worldbuilding modules with manuscript and story-development tools. World Anvil offers more extensive wiki, publishing, customization, and TTRPG functionality.
