The old assemble.tv address now redirects to onassemble.com, and the product it describes there is organized around one idea: put every task, file, note, and conversation on a calendar. That makes Assemble closer to a creative project manager with good client review than to production scheduling software. Storiara works from the other end. It reads the screenplay and produces the documents a 1st AD and a line producer need.
Two tools, two starting points
Assemble's starting point is a date range. You lay out phases (development, prep, shoot, post, delivery), add tasks, assign them to teammates, and shift them one at a time or all at once when the client moves the air date. Files attach to tasks and sort themselves by phase. For a production company juggling a dozen branded pieces, a podcast, and a documentary at once, seeing every timeline in one pipeline view is the main draw.
Storiara's starting point is a script. You upload a PDF, Word, or Final Draft file, and it splits the scenes, measures them in eighths, and extracts the locations, characters, props, wardrobe, and music and effects. Everything else (the board, the cast day counts, the budget, the call sheets) is built on that breakdown.
What Assemble does better
Review and approval is the clearest gap. In Assemble you can upload a cut, a lookbook, or storyboard frames, have the client annotate them, track version history, and mark each file's approval status. Internal comments stay separate from the client's thread. Storiara has comments on items in each module, but no proofing, markup, or approval flags.
External access is also more flexible. Assemble lets you invite unlimited free guests, group them into guest teams (the agency, the post house, the talent's manager), and choose exactly which phases, tasks, and files each group sees. Share links open without a login, can be password protected on Pro, and carry your branding. Storiara's sharing is built for crew: collaborators get roles such as Assistant Director, Department Head, or Accountant, and the budget can be hidden from roles that shouldn't see it.
Assemble also handles work that isn't a shoot. Post schedules, VFX pipelines, and podcast calendars all fit its model, and its template library includes project templates for commercial production, documentary planning, and post workflow.
What Storiara does that Assemble doesn't list
Assemble's film templates are documents. Its shooting schedule template is a page you fill in, and nothing on the site says it reads a script or counts pages. Storiara's stripboard is a working board: drag scenes into days, add day breaks, and it blocks a drop that would push a day past the hours you set. The cast Day Out of Days fills in from what you schedule (SW, W, H, WF and the rest), and the budget uses those paid days.
The call sheet in Storiara is generated per shoot date from the board, the cast and crew records, and the locations, with weather added. You can email it right away or schedule it for 7 p.m., and every date gets a shareable link. In Assemble you'd type the call sheet into a document and share the link yourself.
One task both ways: a 14-page short from script to shoot plan
Say you're producing a 14-page short called PARKING GARAGE with three shoot days and a small brand partner who needs to approve the wardrobe.
In Assemble, you'd start from the Short Film Production Template, set the prep phase over three weeks, and assign tasks: casting, location scout, wardrobe fittings, insurance. You'd break the script down by reading it and typing the elements into a document, then fill in the shooting schedule template by hand, splitting 14 pages across three days (roughly 4 5/8 pages a day). The wardrobe photos go on the fittings task, and the brand gets a guest review link to approve them.
In Storiara, you'd upload the script and check the extracted scenes and elements against the page in the side panel. On the stripboard you'd drag the 22 scenes into three days, keeping the garage night exteriors together on Day 2. The cast DOOD fills in, which shows your lead is only needed Days 1 and 3, so you can see what a hold day on Day 2 would cost before booking. Prep tasks go on the Shared To-Do with assignees and due dates. For the brand's wardrobe approval, you'd email photos outside Storiara, because it has no guest review.
So the brand's approval ends up with a proper record in Assemble and lives in an email thread on the Storiara side, while the page counts and cast days only exist in Storiara.
Paying for a four-person team
Storiara's Producer plan includes the owner, and each added collaborator is $19.99 a month. A producer, director, 1st AD, and production designer come to $39.99 + 3 x $19.99 = $99.96 a month. Anyone who only needs the call sheet opens the public link and doesn't count as a collaborator.
Assemble charges for each paid teammate, so the same four people cost four times the per-teammate rate on whichever plan you pick, with a 17% discount for yearly billing. Guests are free and unlimited, which matters if your client, agency, and post house all need to log in and leave feedback. Storage is capped by plan (100GB on Starter, 500GB on Pro), with add-ons available, and heavy review work with cuts and stills uses it up faster than planning documents do. Rates were shown inconsistently on the pricing page when we checked, so confirm the current number there before budgeting for it.
On set and away from the desk
Storiara's mobile view gives crew the scenes, schedule, assets, and call sheets with weather, mostly read-only, and edits happen on a laptop. Assemble's site announces a new desktop app and focuses on browser review links for people outside the team.
Moving between them
There is no import path either way. Storiara accepts CSV and Excel files for cast, crew, locations, and equipment, so a crew list kept in an Assemble document can be exported to a spreadsheet and brought in. Scenes and breakdown elements come from the script itself, so there's nothing to migrate there. Going the other direction, you can print Storiara's schedule, DOOD, and call sheets to PDF and attach them to Assemble tasks for client-facing review.
Choosing
If most of your work is deliverables for clients, with reviews and approvals on a calendar, Assemble is designed for that and Storiara isn't. If you're scheduling scripted shoot days and need a breakdown, a board, cast day counts, and a budget, Storiara covers that and Assemble doesn't list it. Teams that do both sometimes keep client review in one tool and shoot planning in the other. For more options, see the Assemble alternatives list, the compare hub, or start from a free pre-production checklist and production calendar.