Playmaker vs Playart Pro
With Playmaker a coach can send an animated play to the whole team as a link: free, no account, nothing to install. Playart Pro animates plays too, and has the biggest play library in this market. Here is how the two differ on sports, sharing and price.
We make one of these. Playmaker is our own product, so read this the way you would read any vendor's comparison. What we can offer instead of neutrality is checkable: every figure below was read off the other tool's own pages on , those pages are linked at the foot of this one, and anything we could not verify says so instead of carrying a number.
Two play designers that animate on their own
Playart Pro and Playmaker are built on the same idea. You do not keyframe an animation; you place players, give each one a route or an action, and the play animates from that. Playart Pro's own words: moving a player also moves their route, and moving a defender moves their coverage. Both run in a browser. If you have used one, the other will feel familiar within a minute.
Where Playart Pro is plainly ahead of us is the library. Its home page said, on the day we checked, that it is "now home to 153,499 custom sports plays", searchable by sport, which you can copy and edit. We publish formation and set-piece templates for our own sports, each with a page of its own, but that is a shelf, and Playart Pro's is a warehouse. If you want to start from somebody else's play rather than a blank field, that difference is real.
Sports
Playart Pro covers basketball, flag football, football, hockey, lacrosse and soccer, with flag football designers from 5-on-5 to 9-on-9. We draw soccer, basketball, American football (flag included), field hockey, rugby, netball, baseball and volleyball. So we overlap on basketball, football and soccer. If you coach lacrosse or ice hockey, Playart Pro has it and we do not; if you coach rugby, netball, baseball, volleyball or field hockey, we have it and it does not.
How they compare
Read off each vendor's own page on 8 November 2026. Playart Pro sells time, not a subscription: its plans page says passes are "one-time purchases" that "do not auto-renew". It prints prices with a dollar sign and does not name the currency, so neither do we. It prints no yearly price.
| Tool | Sports | Free tier | Paid | Sharing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PlaymakerThis is us | Eight sports, including football and flag football | Unlimited plays drawn, animated and shared by link with no account at all; 3 saved plays per free account | $6/month or $50/year USD | One play, animated, at its own link; PNG, printable PDF, GIF and MP4 |
| Playart Pro | Six: basketball, flag football, football, hockey, lacrosse, soccer | Offensive play designers for each sport, "forever free"; free plays go into the public play libraries | $17 for 1 month or $27 for 3 months, paid once, no auto-renewal | A link to a playbook's home page, or a playbook exported to PDF |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column — the tool's name stays put.
What Playart Pro does that we do not
The library. Over 150,000 plays to copy and edit, against our handful of templates per sport.
Defence and coverage, drawn as part of the play. Pro adds defensive plays and opposing offences and defences, with zone coverage you can drag. We draw a second team as the defence, on the free tier, but we have no coverage tool.
A formation library. Pro lets you build formations and pick from a library of them, and offers 44 more fields and courts than the free tier.
A pass you can stop paying for without cancelling anything. Buying a month at a time and never being renewed is genuinely coach-friendly for a short season. Our Pro is a subscription you cancel.
What we do that Playart Pro does not
Defence and privacy on the free tier. Playart Pro's free designers are for offensive plays, and its Pro list includes removing your plays from the public libraries, so a free play is a public one. A Playmaker play is private by default: a share link is unlisted, and only the people you send it to can open it.
A single play, animating, at its own link. Playart Pro's sharing guide says the easiest way to share is to create a playbook and send the link to its home page, or to export it as a PDF. Ours is one tap from the play itself: copy the link, send it to the group chat, and the play animates on each player's phone with no login.
Phones. Playart Pro's system requirements say tablets are not officially supported, though it should be usable on newer iPads and Android tablets, and do not mention phones. We are built for a phone first — the player watching the play is usually on one.
Rugby, netball, baseball, volleyball and field hockey.
Who should use which
If you want to start from a library of thousands of plays, or you coach lacrosse or ice hockey, Playart Pro is the better fit, and a $27 pass for three months covers a season without a subscription to remember.
If you coach football, flag football, basketball or soccer and the job is putting an animated play on every player's phone this week, start with the football play designer or the flag football play designer. It is free and needs no account.
Try the free one first
It opens on a real american football pitch, there is nothing to install, and you do not need an account to draw a play and send it to your team as a link.
Open the play designerCommon questions
How much does Playart Pro cost?
On its plans page on 8 November 2026: 17 dollars for one month or 27 dollars for three months. Both are one-time purchases that do not auto-renew. The page does not name the currency and shows no yearly price.
Is Playart Pro free?
It has forever free play designers for offensive plays in each of its six sports. Defensive plays, formations, 44 more fields and courts, and keeping your plays out of the public play libraries are part of Pro.
Does Playart Pro work on a phone?
Its system requirements describe a browser app for Chrome, Firefox and Safari. They say tablets are not officially supported but it should be usable on newer iPads and Android tablets, and they do not mention phones. Playmaker runs in any phone browser.
How do players see a Playart Pro play?
Its sharing guide says to put the plays in a playbook and send players the link to the playbook's home page, or export the playbook to a PDF. In Playmaker every play has its own link, which animates in the browser with no account.
Does Playmaker do flag football?
Yes. Flag football is drawn on the American football field with flag formations, animated and shared by link, free and with no account.
What we checked, and when
Read on . Vendors change their pricing without telling us — if one of these pages now says something different, believe the vendor and tell us so we can fix ours.
Other comparisons
- Best free football play designers in 20269 tools · checked 22 August 2026
- Best free basketball play designers in 20266 tools · checked 21 August 2026
- Best free play designer tools in 20268 tools · checked 21 August 2026
See what it draws
- How to build a flag football playbook: six plays to install2 interactive plays
- Five soccer set pieces for U12s that actually work3 interactive plays
- Basketball inbound plays that actually work2 interactive plays
Coach another sport?
The same designer draws every one of them, which is the thing the table above is really about.
Page updated · figures checked