YWriter vs Scrivener?

I hope this is allowed here. I've been using YWriter for the past few years because I like it better than Liquid Story Binder. What I REALLY wanted when I picked up YW though was Scrivener, but I own a PC. Now that Scrivener is coming out for the PC, I was wondering if anyone has used both and could tell me if there are any big differences between the programs and which one they liked better? Definitely thinking about at least getting the trial of Scrivener and using it this year, but just wondering right now how the two compare. :)

They are both good, but they are not particularly similar in style. Somewhat more in functionality. But Scrivener comes across as much "bigger" in pretty much every sense, while yWriter (as you know) is this handy little Swiss Army Knife that looks kind of tiny but can do a lot of things quickly. As I said last year, using Scrivener made me feel like a novelist, using yWriter made me feel like a programmer. So far my writing tends to be a lot like programming (which I have done fore decades as well) so I have found it easier to actually get things done that way. But I admit that Scrivener is more fun while it lasts. It's... shiny. yWriter tends to kind of fade into the background for me.

To me, yWriter has been more useful. I know that Scrivener has piles of features and can write my novel for me - but yWriter gives me just enough features to allow me to write freely. Sometimes more is less...

I used yWriter before switching to Scrivener. I liked the openess and graphical interface a little bit better than the programmy feel that yWriter has to it. Plus, I was able to quickly create templates for characters and places quickly from yWriter and I used a lot of the organizational cues from yWriter and set Scrivener up the best for me. But I prefer Scrivener because of the functionality and the fact that it's can be so simple yet so expandable at the same time. yWriter is pretty much what it is, and it can be clunky to try to get around at times. For instance, You have to set up your characters and stuff in yWriter whereas in Scrivener you can just sit down and write. The best thing anyone could recommend for you is to sit down while you still have some time and see which program just feels right for you. Which one do you find easier to get around? Go with that one. Give Scrivener a try, and if there's features in it that you love, switch. If there's features that you can't live without in yWriter, stick with it. Have fun.

I've tried using ywriter in the past but never felt very comfortable with it. I started using the Scrivener PC beta and so far I'm really loving it. It just makes more sense in my brain somehow, and yes, it's prettier to look at.

Mac: Scrivener. I think yWriter works on Macs.

PC: yWriter all the way for me. I love how simplistic it is, it's better for simple writers like myself. And it's free, and price is also a huge weighing feature when it comes to writing programs for me. Scrivener has better, and more, features.... but do we REALLY need all of that in the end?

But in the end, chose whatever you are more comfortable with.

yWriter works well from a USB stick, Scrivener doesn't really.
yWriter is 1.4mb, Scrivener is 34mb (Windows 0.35 beta)
yWriter allows you to go back to pretty much any earlier version of your work - you don't loose anything, ever.

Scrivener is better for handling details about characters (I think), it's easier to see overviews, etc.
Scrivener's corkboard is great, if you do proper descriptions and titles for your scenes etc.

Both save the actual words of your work in RTF format, so it's not locked down or anything.

I've used yWriter a lot, and I am a big fan. I've used Scrivener a little, and it's good, not sure if I would change yet, and still not decided if I will use it for this years NaNoWriMo.

At the moment I think it comes down to whether I want to do a lot of meta-stuff (Scrivener wins) or just get on and write (yWriter wins)

What exactly is it that Scrivener can do that yWriter can't? I keep hearing about the corkboard, but in yWriter you can drag and drop scenes or even chapters to rearrange them and see the outline of the story; it's got a timeline which Scrivener hasn't; you can write in Word, which I like, because I use the autocorrect feature of Word for shortcuts/abbreviations; you don't have to add character info or any other info if all you want to do is write, just add a chapter and then a scene or several, but you can add all sorts of meta data, info, project notes, daily word goals etc if you like. It even exports your MS in Nano Obfuscated Text for sending into the word counter ... Okay, so it's a little bit less shiny, but it's simple and easy to use and lets me get on with writing!

Just chipping in as the yWriter programmer ;-)

I designed yWriter ten years ago for my own use. It's always been about 'does it do what I want?', although I've made concessions to others. E.g. by adding the spell checker, which I never use, and things like character pictures and so on.

(I don't use items or locations, and I only use characters to store their short names and perhaps a few pointers relevant to the plot. I don't use any of the items on the scene details tab either.)

The most important parts for me are: importing a work in progress, not losing any of my work, being able to move scenes and chapters around, getting a simple overview of my project, and exporting my finished novel into formats suitable for ebooks, paperbacks, or manuscripts I can send to my editor.

When the first draft is complete I find the work progress report invaluable: marking scenes as outline, draft, 1st edit, etc, then seeing what I have to do for the next few months to get it finished. Some people have asked for more of these categories, but there's no need: When all the scenes in the entire book are marked 'Done' I revert them all to 'Draft' and start with my next round of edits.

I've never used Scrivener myself, but I think it's great there are several choices for writers. Actually, given all the unpaid hours I've put into yWriter over the years it would probably be in my best interest to push everyone to Scrivener ;-)

Is it a coincidence the the programmer of yWriter and the programmer converting Scrivener to Windows are both from Australia?

Coincidence or nefarious plan to corner the world market on novel-authoring software in their quest for world domination?

Sorry, just outlining plot points for this year's novel.

Thanks to you both for providing us hacks with tools to have fewer excuses to avoid writing. I've donated to yWriter and highly recommend that if you use it and love it that you do so also. Those contributions are why there are features in there that the programmer doesn't use himself. I'm going to buy Scrivener this year since I've been toying with it for a year and feel I need to pay for using their fine product. And that will also give me a way to squander time in November, moving snippets from yWriter to Scrivener and others from Scrivener to yWriter. You know, just so I can say "it wasn't me, the software got in the way...and the sun was in my eyes...and my dog ate my first draft...ummmm, next year!"

Thank you everyone for all the opinions, and to the software folks for coming in and telling us more about your creations! I'm going to give Scrivener a try with the NaNo version and I guess I'll see how I like it compared to YWriter! :)

I personally prefer YWriter. While Scrivener felt somewhat cleaner and more polished (I tried the freebee "Only for November" one last year) I ended up just getting frustrated and wanting to write. I guess it's probably better for the more hardcore planners out there, you know, people who know where their story is going before they write it, and who are likely to want to go back and do a lot of tweaking afterwards, but I found I spent way too much time procrastinating by playing with the shiny features and not enough time writing.

YWriter is incredibly simple and leaves me (almost) no room for procrastination, and now that I ave about eight half-finished projects hidden in it's pages, it would be way too much hassle to switch.

I have actually ended up using basically every bit of writing/productivity related piece of SpaceJock software, and have contributed more than once because he is just so helpful when I have problems :D

I tried yWriter and I'm now using Scrivener. I wanted something that worked on Windows, Mac and Linux and I couldn't get yWriter to do all those things easily.

yWriter is a great little program and has some great features. But I'm finding Scrivener easier to use and if I have an issue there are great forums and community support. Plus the people who are writing it are very quick to step in and help when you run into a problem. I really like that feeling of support.

And, while not free, Scrivener is cheap compared to other writing software.

Also it manages all my writing projects for me. I need someone to organise me and Scrivener is my virtual someone.