--- title: "Scribus Software Reviews, Demo & Pricing - 2026" description: "Review of Scribus Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs." source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/" page_type: "product" language: "en" --- [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [Publishing and Subscriptions Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/) / Scribus Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. Overview [Reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/)[Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/alternatives/) # Scribus Review Custom quote Free version 1 plan On this page - Overview - User Interface - Popular Alternatives - Pricing and Plans - Features - User Reviews ## Overview Scribus 4.4 [(19)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/) Pricing Pricing available upon request Top Alternatives ### About Scribus Scribus is an open-source desktop publishing solution that helps businesses create and manage content for publications using a page layout system. It enables professionals to design newsletters, magazines, print advertisements, brochures, calendars and more by editing text, designs and photos. Scribus lets administrators streamline color management operations, automate workflows and view documents in XML format. It allows users to manage content across multiple operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS, Warp 4, eComStation, Windows, OpenIndiana, Solaris, Debian GNU, FreeBSD and Haiku. It is available to users for free and support is extended via phone, email, documentation and other online measures. Do you work for Scribus? [Manage this product listing](https://www.g2.com/products/scribus/claim_requests/new?auto=true) ## Scribus User Interface ## Popular Scribus Alternatives Main Product Scribus 4.4 [(19)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.11Ease of use - 4.63Value for money - 3.44Customer support - 4.21Functionality Pricing Available upon request Alternative Product [Adobe Express](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/) 4.6 [(1244)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.50Ease of use - 4.42Value for money - 4.37Customer support - 4.37Functionality Pricing Starting at $4.99 per month Alternative Product [Adobe Creative Cloud](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-creative-cloud-profile/) No reviews yet Ratings Breakdown - Ease of use - Value for money - Customer support - Functionality Pricing Starting at $19.99 per month Alternative Product [Flipsnack](https://www.softwareadvice.com/retail/flipsnack-profile/) 4.6 [(310)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/retail/flipsnack-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.49Ease of use - 4.21Value for money - 4.46Customer support - 4.33Functionality Pricing Starting at $35.00 per month Alternative Product [Canva](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/) 4.7 [(13469)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.69Ease of use - 4.61Value for money - 4.40Customer support - 4.55Functionality Pricing Starting at $10.00 per month Alternative Product [Squarespace](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/) 4.6 [(3435)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.47Ease of use - 4.31Value for money - 4.37Customer support - 4.31Functionality Pricing Starting at $19.00 per month ## Scribus Pricing and Plans Scribus has one plan. Basic is custom-priced. Free version Basic Contact Vendor for Pricing No plan information available ### How does Scribus pricing compare to alternatives? Explore how Scribus's pricing and plan options compare with top alternatives below. | Product | Starting price | Free trial | Free version | Value for Money | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Scribus4.4[(19)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/) | Free | Not available | Available | 4.6 | | [Adobe Express](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/)4.6[(1,244)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/reviews/) | $4.99 /user/mo | Available | Available | 4.4 | | [Canva](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/)4.7[(13,469)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/reviews/) | $10.00 /user/mo | Available | Available | 4.6 | | [Squarespace](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/)4.6[(3,435)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/reviews/) | $19.00 /mo | Available | Not available | 4.3 | | [Adobe Creative Cloud](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-creative-cloud-profile/)No reviews yet | $19.99 /mo | Available | Not available | N/A | Scribus4.4[(19)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/) * * * Starting price Free Free trial Not available Free version Available Value For Money 4.6 - [Adobe Express](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/)4.6[(1,244)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/reviews/) * * * Starting price $4.99 /user/mo Free trial Available Free version Available Value For Money 4.4 - [Canva](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/)4.7[(13,469)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/graphic-design/canva-profile/reviews/) * * * Starting price $10.00 /user/mo Free trial Available Free version Available Value For Money 4.6 - [Squarespace](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/)4.6[(3,435)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/squarespace-profile/reviews/) * * * Starting price $19.00 /mo Free trial Available Free version Not available Value For Money 4.3 - [Adobe Creative Cloud](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-creative-cloud-profile/)No reviews yet * * * Starting price $19.99 /mo Free trial Available Free version Not available Value For Money N/A ## Scribus Features - Popular features found in Publishing and Subscriptions Campaign Management Catalog Management Circulation Management Collaboration Tools Customizable Branding Image Editing Reporting & Statistics SEO Management Subscription Management - More features of Scribus Activity Tracking API Data Visualization Document Storage Magazines Newsletters ## Scribus User Reviews ## Scribus customer ratings - Overall rating: 4.4/5 - Total reviews: 19 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 11 reviews (58%) - 4 stars: 7 reviews (37%) - 3 stars: 0 reviews (0%) - 2 stars: 0 reviews (0%) - 1 star: 1 reviews (5%) ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 4.1/5 - Value for money: 4.6/5 - Customer support: 3.4/5 - Functionality: 4.2/5 --- ### The best open source alternative of Adobe InDesign - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Md.Fateh Ali S. - Industry: Design - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: less than 1 year · weekly - Reviewed: June 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered It's a great tool to create books and magazine designs. It allows me to import a large number of pages and work on them easily. As open-source software, it works wonderfully, but if you need advanced and professional work, you consider others. I will recommend others to try it before you buy adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher. I hope you will love this. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Scribus is one of the best desktop publishing software in the publishing and print media and it's totally free to everyone. The user interface of this software is pretty cool and very lightweight. It supports multi-cross platforms like windows, Linux, and macOS. So, you can install this software on multiple computers. It has many professional features, such as CYMK support, image packaging, and a wonderful PDF export feature, highly valued by professional printing services. #### Cons One of the big issues of Scribus is its open-source software. So it didn't get updated regularly. In contrast to Adobe InDesign, Scribus lacks advanced features and functionality. --- ### It does not get much better then this - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Accounting - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: a free trial · monthly - Reviewed: July 2025 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered 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 #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### 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. --- ### Too many bugs. Unusable. - Overall rating: 1/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Marketing and Advertising - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: less than 1 year · weekly - Reviewed: February 2024 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered This product used to be decent. Now it's unusable and I paid for this. Terrible. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Functionality: 1/5 #### 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! --- ### Scribus - Great open-source tool for preparing small to medium sized publications. - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Libraries - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: 3-5 years · monthly - Reviewed: October 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. 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. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### 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. --- ### Have been happy using the 1.5 branch for years - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Publishing - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: 3-5 years · weekly - Reviewed: October 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered 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. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### 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. --- ### The best alternative to expensive Adobe InDesign - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Publishing - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: 3-5 years · daily - Reviewed: November 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Good experience #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Scribus supports different formats including Adobe formats and that is helpful and facilitates the smooth workflow. It's free and works on different operating systems without compromising features. Still it has professional features without breaking banks. Frequent updates keep it stay on top of tech advancements. Better handling of XML files than InDesign #### Cons It requires a learning efforts for the beginners. Still lacks some features given by InDesign but the price makes it the best for budget conscious professionals --- ### My Experience with Scribus for Document Creation - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Media Production - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: less than 1 year · weekly - Reviewed: May 2023 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered 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 #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### 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. --- ### Scribus has been an important part of my open source suite of software for years! - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Writing and Editing - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: 3-5 years · monthly - Reviewed: October 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### 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... --- ### Works perfectly for publishing media and is an open source. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Sunjida A. - Industry: Media Production - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: less than 1 year · weekly - Reviewed: September 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It works great to make some publishing designs. Compare to other software I love the performance of Scribus and its open source. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Scribus is great in terms of publishing software. It's easy to operate. I use it to create book covers and some magazine layouts #### Cons I didn't get any major issue. It's okay to me. --- ### Ideal software for publishing - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Industry: Publishing - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: 3-5 years · monthly - Reviewed: April 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I found it fairly easy to create book covers with Scribus, as well as signs and posters. #### Cons Some difficulty embedding certain fonts when exporting to PDF. --- Showing 1 - 10 of 19 Reviews [See All Reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/publishing-and-subscriptions/scribus-profile/reviews/) ## See what companies are saying about Software Advice