An articy:draft alternative for game studios
articy:draft is the long-standing desktop tool for narrative design. LoreHub is a browser-based dialogue and worldbuilding tool built for teams that write, test and translate the same story at the same time. Here is an honest comparison, including where articy:draft is the better choice.
Written by the LoreHub team. Facts about other tools come from their own websites and docs, checked in November 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us on Discord.
The short answer
Choose articy:draft if you want a mature desktop application with official Unity and Unreal importers and a deep localisation and voice-over toolset, and your team is happy with desktop licences.
Choose LoreHub if your writers, narrative designers, translators and programmers should work in the same story in the browser, you want your story as plain text in Git or Perforce, and you'd rather pay per world than per seat.
articy:draft X vs LoreHub at a glance
| articy:draft X | LoreHub | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Windows and macOS desktop app | In the browser, nothing to install |
| Working together | Multi-user licence is a separate offer | Live presence and edits on every plan, history and revert for every line |
| Dialogue | Dialogues and branching stories, scripting with conditional paths and seen/unseen/fallback keywords | Visual canvas with options, links, true/false variables and played/selected conditions |
| Story structure checks | Conditional paths in scripting | Route Planner checks what each dialogue requires and produces across a story |
| Engines | Official Unity and Unreal integrations | JSON, YAML or OSF export for any engine; you write a small loader (Unity tutorial included) |
| Localisation | Languages, status, DeepL, Excel round-trip, voice-over tools | Translate tab, outdated tracking, enforced or fallback per language, no language cap |
| Source of truth | The articy:draft project; exports to engines, Excel and Word | Plain-text OSF files you can keep in Git or Perforce |
| Lore and worldbuilding | Characters and other game content in the same project | Worldbuilder: documents, relations, gallery, timeline |
| Price model | Free edition (700 objects per project), paid subscriptions | Per world: Free, Indie €9/mo, Team €49/mo, Enterprise |
Where LoreHub is different
The whole team in one story, in the browser
LoreHub runs in the browser, so a producer, a voice director or a translator opens the same world from a link. Edits and presence show up live without reloading, every line has history and revert, and viewers never take a seat on any plan.
Plain text you can review like code
Stories are saved in the open OSF format as plain-text files you can keep in Git or Perforce next to your game. Changes show up as normal diffs in code review, and the osf command line tool runs the same checks as the editor on every pull request.
Route checks before QA
The Route Planner puts dialogues on a map, says what each one requires and produces, and marks every requirement as always met, met on some routes or never met. Broken routes show up while the scene is being written.
Dialogue and lore side by side
The Dialogue Builder and the Worldbuilder share one world: characters, places and factions as documents with relations, a gallery and a timeline, right next to the dialogue that uses them.
Where articy:draft is ahead
- Official Unity and Unreal integrations. With LoreHub you load the exported JSON yourself.
- DeepL translation and an Excel round-trip for translators, plus voice-over tooling.
- It is a desktop application, which some teams prefer; LoreHub needs an internet connection.
- A free edition for commercial use with the full toolset, capped at 700 objects per project.
Moving from articy:draft
There is no articy:draft importer in LoreHub today. Start with one real scene: the Free plan has room for 50 dialogues and 3 editor seats. To bring existing scenes over, rebuild them on the canvas or let an AI agent with a Write key create them through the LoreHub MCP server, then check them in the player. Want help planning a move? Book a call.
See every plan on the pricing page, or read how LoreHub compares with Yarn Spinner, Twine and the rest of the best narrative design tools.