LineLearner vs Scriptmate: Two Line-Learning Apps Compared

You’ve got the script, a week until the off-book date, and nobody free to read the other parts with you. LineLearner and Scriptmate both live on your phone and both promise to stand in for that missing scene partner. They solve the problem in close to opposite ways.

LineLearner is a tape recorder built for actors: you record every line in the scene, the other characters included, and play it back with gaps where you speak. Scriptmate reads your PDF or a photo of your sides, gives the other characters natural voices, and listens to you so it can answer when you finish. We judged both, and Offbook, on the same six questions. Our pick for most actors is Offbook, which reads every other role with realistic voices and listens for you to finish each line. The reasons are below.

How We Compared Them

A line app is worth keeping if you still open it the night before the audition. These six questions decide that.

• Who reads the other parts: generated voices, your own recordings, or a castmate’s?
• How does it know it’s your turn: by listening to you, or by leaving a gap in a recording?
• How does your script get in, and does the app find your lines for you?
• What does it give you for memorizing, beyond hearing the scene again?
• Where does it run: iPhone, iPad, Android, a Mac, or a browser?
• What does it cost: a one-time price, a subscription, or a free trial?

Offbook, LineLearner, and Scriptmate at a Glance

Each App on the Same Six Points

Offbook

Offbook starts from the script you already have. Upload a PDF, a photo of the pages (PNG or JPEG), or a text file, and it sorts the pages into roles and lines and writes a title and summary for the scene. Pick your role, and realistic voices read every other character. Free and Starter cast from 12 voices; Pro and Premium cast from a larger catalog.

When you rehearse, Offbook plays the other lines, listens through your microphone while you say yours, and plays the next cue when it hears you finish. You can also press Enter or say “next line”. For memorizing, hide your own lines, hide the whole script for a final test, or swap your lines for the first 1-8 letters of each word. The teleprompter shows your line large and highlights each word as you say it, and scene looping restarts the scene when it ends.

Price: Starter is $9.99 a month, Pro $14.99, and Premium $29.99, with annual billing from $7.99 a month. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial (it requires a card). Paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts; generated audio has a monthly allowance of 50,000 characters on Starter, 100,000 on Pro, and 200,000 on Premium. Students and educators get 50% off with a valid .edu email. Best for actors who want a reader that hears them finish, for anything from two pages of sides to a full-length play.

LineLearner

LineLearner, from Peter Allday, is built around recordings. You record every line of the scene yourself, your partners’ lines included, and you can shift the pitch of each character so the other parts don’t sound like you. On playback, your lines become gaps, and you fill them out loud.

There’s no text-to-speech and no speech recognition, and that’s deliberate. On the app’s help site, the developer explains that a computer won’t put the emphasis in the right place, and that having the computer read the script costs you the rhythm that helps you learn. You can load a PDF or Word file to read from while you record, but the import does not turn it into lines.

One feature stands out for a cast. You can share a recorded script file with a castmate, who records their own lines over the ones you recorded for them and sends it back. When you import it, their takes replace yours, so you rehearse against the real voices from your scene.

Price: $3.99 once on the US App Store, with no in-app purchases. A free LineLearner lite holds up to 10 lines, with a $3.99 upgrade. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Macs, and there’s an Android version on Google Play. Best for actors who want to hear the scene in their own voice, or their castmates’, and have time to record it.

Scriptmate

Scriptmate is an iPhone app. You import a PDF screenplay or photograph your paper sides, and it marks your lines automatically. There’s no account to make: a demo scene runs the first time you open it.

Its speech recognition runs on the phone and follows your speech word by word through the whole line, not only the last word, so it keeps up if you paraphrase or restart. The reader answers when you finish. Its line reader page lists natural voices for English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Italian, with ten American and British voices for English; once prepared, they play offline. Other languages use the iPhone’s own voices, and you can long-press any reader line to record it yourself.

It also records self-tapes in the app, in landscape, with the reader in your headphones. A Focus mode blocks the apps you pick while you rehearse.

Price: Scriptmate Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial, as its App Store listing shows. Best for iPhone users who want a reader that follows them and voices that play offline.

Who Reads the Other Parts

This is the real split. In LineLearner, every other character is you, pitch-shifted, until a castmate sends their takes back. In Scriptmate, natural voices read the other roles, and you can swap in your own recording of any line. Offbook casts realistic voices for every role but yours, so there’s no recording session before your first run.

Recording has a real upside: you decide the pace and the emphasis of every cue. The cost is time, and it grows with the length of the scene. Record a ten-page two-hander and you’ve read the whole thing aloud once before you’ve rehearsed at all.

Whichever app reads the cues, say your own lines out loud. A University of Waterloo study of 95 people compared reading silently, hearing someone else read, hearing a recording of yourself, and reading aloud in real time. Reading aloud yourself was remembered best; the researchers call it the production effect. Hearing your own recorded voice is not the same as speaking, so count on the lines you say out loud, not the ones you hear.

How Each App Knows It’s Your Turn

LineLearner doesn’t listen. It plays the recording, leaves a gap for your line, and moves on.

Scriptmate listens. It tracks your whole line and answers when you finish, even if you paraphrase or start again.

Offbook listens too, and lets you choose how strict it is: Strict, which keeps you close to the script; Lenient, with a 0-100 slider, while you’re still finding the words; or Manual, when you want to hold a long pause and then press Enter. It can also move on by itself after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so your hands stay free for the blocking.

Getting Your Script In

In LineLearner, the script is a reference. You can open a PDF or Word file to read from while you record, but the lines in the app are your recordings, so setup time scales with the scene. Scriptmate takes a PDF screenplay or a photo of your sides and marks your lines for you.

Offbook takes a PDF, a photo of the pages, or a text file and sorts it into roles and lines. One scene holds up to 50 pages or about 10,000 words, and the page picker splits up to 150 pages into 10 scenes, so a full-length play fits. Afterward you can edit the dialogue, move a line to the right character, or add a pause where the director wants one.

Memorizing, Not Just Hearing the Scene

Hearing a scene on repeat feels like learning, but recall is what sticks. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke showed why in a study summarized by the APS. Students who tested themselves read the passages about 3.4 times and recalled 61% a week later. Students who kept rereading read them about 14.2 times and recalled 40%, and they felt more confident about it.

LineLearner’s tool is the gap itself: hearing the cue and filling the silence out loud is a test every time. Scriptmate’s Focus mode blocks the apps you pick, so the phone stays a rehearsal tool for the session. Offbook hides your lines or the whole script, and its first-letter cues show the first 1-8 letters of each word, or only the first word of each line. You can try first-letter cues on any text with our free first-letter memorizer.

Don’t learn the words as a string of sounds, though. Helga and Tony Noice found that actors seldom learn by rote; they work out what the lines mean and what the character wants, a process the APS Observer described as active experiencing. Lines learned while making a movement, such as crossing the stage, were also remembered better. So walk the blocking while the reader gives you your cues.

Phones, Tablets, Android, and Laptops

LineLearner covers the most hardware of the two: iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Macs on one purchase, plus an Android version on Google Play. Scriptmate is an iPhone app; its website says there’s no iPad or Android version yet.

With Offbook, rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere. On the phone, your own lines can be spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps, playback keeps going with the screen locked, and you can save a scene as an MP3 for the subway.

What Each One Costs

LineLearner is a one-time purchase: $3.99 on iOS, with no in-app purchases, and a free lite version for scenes of up to 10 lines. Scriptmate Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial. Offbook starts at $9.99 a month on Starter, or $7.99 a month billed annually, after a 7-day free trial, and students and educators get 50% off.

Before you pay anything, Offbook’s free run lines tool lets you rehearse classic scenes in its voices with no account. Free accounts can also practice any scene a castmate shares with them.

What Your Situation Calls For

• You don’t want to record every other part first: Offbook, where realistic voices read every role but yours.
• You want the reader to hear you finish, on your terms: Offbook, with Strict, Lenient with a 0-100 slider, or Manual, and an optional move-on after 1 to 6 seconds of silence.
• You’re learning a full-length play: Offbook, where the page picker splits up to 150 pages into scenes.
• You want your castmates in the loop: Offbook shares a scene by email invitation on every paid plan, and people you invite can practice it even on a free account.
• You want to ask about the character, not just drill: Offbook’s Genie answers questions about motivation, scene context, and line interpretation.

If you’re weighing a switch, our LineLearner comparison and Scriptmate comparison go into more detail. For more apps judged the same way, see the best line learning apps, or how LineLearner stacks up in Script Rehearser vs LineLearner.

Questions Actors Ask

What is the difference between LineLearner and Scriptmate?

Who reads and who listens. LineLearner plays back recordings you make of every line, with gaps for yours, and has no text-to-speech or speech recognition. Scriptmate gives the other roles natural voices and uses on-device speech recognition to answer when you finish your line.

Which line-learning app records the other parts?

LineLearner: you record every line yourself, or a castmate records theirs into a shared script file. Scriptmate lets you record any reader line by long-pressing it, while its voices read the rest. In Offbook, realistic voices read every role but yours, and you can set their speed for the whole scene or for a single line.

Do LineLearner and Scriptmate work on Android?

LineLearner has an Android version on Google Play. Scriptmate’s website says there’s no Android or iPad version yet. Offbook’s rehearsal runs in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows; on a phone you listen to your scenes, with your own lines spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps.

What do LineLearner and Scriptmate cost?

LineLearner is $3.99 once on the US App Store with no in-app purchases, and LineLearner lite is free for up to 10 lines. Scriptmate Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial. Offbook’s Starter plan is $9.99 a month, or from $7.99 a month billed annually, after a 7-day free trial.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, so you can run a scene minutes after you upload it, with no recording session first. It listens for you to finish and lets you choose how closely, Strict, Lenient with a 0-100 slider, or Manual. And it takes anything from a two-page side to a full-length play split into scenes, with no monthly cap on the number of scripts on paid plans.

Between the two apps compared here, the split is recordings against listening. LineLearner plays back the scene in your voice, or your castmates’, for a one-time $3.99. Scriptmate reads in natural voices on the iPhone and follows your line as you say it.

Offbook is made by the team behind this blog. Prices as of November 2026.