A lot of students and aspiring writers ask me if you “must” use Final Draft or Screenwriter to write a screenplay. No. Absolutely not, unless you are working on a production. In which case, they own or your earn enough for Final Draft or Screenwriter and whatever budget/scheduling apps the production team uses.
My preference is to start all projects in Scrivener and then migrate to either Final Draft or Screenwriter for screenplays. For other projects, I like to remain in Scrivener as much as possible.
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I have to say, after trying WriterDuet I would use it in a heartbeat for a small production company and definitely for any non-profit, educational projects. No question. The only reason not to use it is that you must have the exclusive rights to a script… and I don’t have those in my work.
WriterDuet is probably the best free or low-cost option I have tested. It is very interesting. Blows away Celtx. The Pro version with off-line editing is cheaper than Final Draft or Screenwriter.
The Pro edition is a standalone, offline version that requires an investment of $80 (annually) or $160 (lifetime). Unless you are using the collaboration tools of WriterDuet, I’d suggest to Scrivener (the tool I use for drafting everything I write) or FadeIn, which I LOVE for the $80 price. The collaboration is simply easier with WriterDuet than any other tool I’ve tested. Nobody has to buy anything to collaborate online, live.
I do not own any rights to client works and therefore have been told I cannot use Adobe Story, for example. Amazon Screenwriter is off-limits because their license is a tangled mess.
Final Draft has a secure collaboration mode in which my computer is the server for clients to access with their copies of Final Draft. The collaboration in FD is good.
FadeIn supports collaborating, too, but I believe everyone on the team needs to be using FadeIn.
When people ask or email me to locate free or cheap writing tools, I used to suggest using what you have (Word, LibreOffice / OpenOffice, Pages, etc) and just write. The most important thing you can do is write the script using anything. Now, I would say if you are online most of the time, try WriterDuet as a free solution. It is amazing. Seriously good. For the price.
Myself, I remain a Screenwriter 6.x user. It’s what I love. But that’s me.