MemoCoach vs LineLearner: Hide the Words or Record the Cues?

You searched for a line app, and two names kept coming up: MemoCoach and LineLearner. Both are iPhone and iPad apps, and both are cheap or free to start. They look alike in a list. They work nothing alike once you open them.

MemoCoach is a text memorizer. You read your text aloud while it hides more of the words each round, and nothing in it speaks. LineLearner is a recorder. You record every line of the scene yourself, the other characters included, and play it back with gaps where you speak. So the real question is whether you want to drill the words or hear the cues. We judged both, plus Scriptmate, an iPhone reader that listens for your line, and Offbook, on the same six points. Our pick for most actors is Offbook, which reads every other role with realistic voices and listens for you to finish each line.

How We Compared Them

A line app earns its place if you still open it the night before the first stagger-through. These six questions decide that.

• Who reads the other parts: generated voices, your own recordings, or nobody?
• How does it know it’s your turn: by listening, by leaving a gap, or by waiting for you to tap?
• How does your script get in, and does the app sort out who says what?
• What does it give you for memorizing, beyond seeing or hearing the words again?
• Where does it run: iPhone, iPad, Android, a Mac, or a browser?
• What does it cost: free, a one-time price, or a subscription?

Offbook, MemoCoach, 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. Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere.

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), and students and educators get 50% off with a valid .edu email. Paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts. Best for actors who want the cues read aloud and the drills in one place, from two pages of sides to a full-length play.

MemoCoach

MemoCoach, from Cosmic Taps, works on text. Paste it in, or import a PDF, TXT, RTF, or HTML file, as its tutorial shows, then read it aloud. Its App Store listing describes hiding words, lines, or first letters, step by step, and an actor mode that practices only your own lines.

There are no audio cues. You read; nothing reads back. For a two-hander, that means the other character’s lines are text, not a voice.

Price: MemoCoach is free for up to 10 texts, and a Premium in-app purchase unlocks more methods. It runs on iPhone and iPad, and on Vision Pro; there’s no Mac or Android version. Best for actors drilling a speech, a poem, or a monologue where nobody else talks.

LineLearner

LineLearner, from Peter Allday, is built around recordings. You record every line of the scene yourself, your partners’ lines included, and the pitch can be shifted per character so the other parts don’t all 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. The developer left computer voices out on purpose: 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 works against learning it. You can load a PDF or Word file to read from while you record, but the import does not turn it into lines.

It also lets a cast record a scene together. You can share a recorded script file, and castmates add their lines and send it back.

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, from Peter Lavskiy, is the one app here besides Offbook that reads the cues and listens. Import a PDF screenplay or a photo of your paper sides, and it marks your lines automatically. Its speech recognition follows you word by word through the whole line, so it keeps up if you paraphrase or restart, and 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. 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, with no account needed, as its App Store listing shows. It’s an iPhone app; its website says there’s no iPad or Android version yet. Best for iPhone users who want a reader that follows them, with voices that play offline.

Who Reads the Other Parts

This is where MemoCoach and LineLearner split, and it’s the question to answer first. In MemoCoach, nobody reads the other parts. The cue is text on the screen, and no voice says it to you. In LineLearner, you record every line yourself, the other characters included, and castmates can add their lines to a shared script file.

Scriptmate gives the other roles natural voices, 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, and the cue comes at you out loud the way it will in rehearsal. You can set how fast the voices read, for the whole scene or for a single line.

Why it matters: in the rehearsal room you don’t see your cue, you hear it. A line you can recite from a page can still stall when another actor says the line before it at their own speed. Practicing with the cue spoken, by anyone or anything, trains the join between their line and yours.

How Each App Knows It’s Your Turn

MemoCoach doesn’t need to know. You read at your own pace and move on when you’re ready, which is fine for a solo speech and leaves the pace of a scene to you.

LineLearner doesn’t listen either. It plays the recording, leaves a gap for your line, and moves on. Scriptmate listens and answers when you finish your line, even if you paraphrase or start again. In LineLearner, treat each gap like a run in the room: say your line, and if you go up, keep going rather than stopping to check the script.

Offbook listens, and 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, which never moves on by itself, for when you want to hold a long pause and press Enter. It can also move on after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so your hands stay free for props and blocking.

Getting Your Script In

MemoCoach takes pasted text or a PDF, TXT, RTF, or HTML file. 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 grows with the length of the scene. A ten-page scene means reading all ten pages aloud before your first run. 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 Rereading

All four apps have you say your 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. That’s a caution for LineLearner users: hearing your own recorded voice isn’t the same as speaking, so count on the lines you say into the gaps.

MemoCoach’s hiding is a form of retrieval practice, and the research on it is strong. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke showed it 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 sure they’d learned it.

Offbook gives you the same kind of test inside the scene. Hide your lines, hide the whole script, or show only the first 1-8 letters of each word, while the voices keep giving you cues. You can try first-letter cues on any text with our free first-letter memorizer, no account needed.

Whatever app you use, don’t learn the words as a string of sounds. 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 related movement, like crossing the stage, were also remembered better. So stand up and walk the blocking while the cues come.

Phones, Tablets, Android, and Laptops

MemoCoach runs on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro, with no Mac or Android version. LineLearner covers more hardware: iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Macs, plus an Android version on Google Play. Scriptmate is an iPhone app, with no iPad or Android version yet. So if you’re on Android, of these three only LineLearner runs on your phone.

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 commute.

What Each One Costs

MemoCoach is free for up to 10 texts, with a Premium in-app purchase for more methods. LineLearner is $3.99 once on iOS 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, and students and educators get 50% off.

What Your Situation Calls For

• You want your cues spoken without recording them first: Offbook, where realistic voices read every role but yours.
• You want the reader to wait for you: Offbook listens and plays the next cue when you finish, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching.
• You want word-by-word drills on top of a spoken scene: Offbook hides your lines, hides the whole script, or shows first-letter cues while the voices read.
• You’re learning a full-length play: Offbook, where the page picker splits up to 150 pages into scenes.
• 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 coming from one of these apps, our LineLearner comparison and our guide to MemoCoach alternatives go into more detail. For more apps judged the same way, see the best line learning apps, or how LineLearner compares with a reader that listens in LineLearner vs Scriptmate.

Questions Actors Ask

What is the difference between MemoCoach and LineLearner?

MemoCoach hides your text, a step at a time, while you read it aloud, and it has no audio cues. LineLearner plays back recordings you make of every line, with gaps where your lines go, and has no text-to-speech or speech recognition. One drills the words; the other plays the scene in your own voice.

Is MemoCoach free?

MemoCoach is free for up to 10 texts, and a Premium in-app purchase unlocks more methods. Offbook’s free run lines tool and first-letter memorizer need no account, free accounts can practice scenes shared with them, and every Offbook plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

Does LineLearner work on Android?

Yes, LineLearner has an Android version on Google Play. MemoCoach has no Android version, and Scriptmate’s website says there’s no Android 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.

Which line learning app records your cues?

LineLearner: you record every line yourself, or a castmate records theirs into a shared script file. MemoCoach has no audio cues. Scriptmate lets you long-press any reader line to record it yourself, while its voices read the rest. In Offbook, you don’t need to record anything: realistic voices read every role but yours, and you can set their speed for the scene or for a single line.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, so you hear your cues out loud with no recording session first. It listens for you to finish and lets you choose how closely, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual. And it keeps the drills that make lines stick, hidden lines and first-letter cues, inside a spoken scene, from a two-page side to a full-length play.

Between MemoCoach and LineLearner, the split is silence against recordings. MemoCoach hides your words while you read aloud, free for up to 10 texts. LineLearner plays the scene back 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.