The best location apps in 2026 split in two: Peerspace and Giggster find you a bookable space, and almost nothing runs the location once you have it. StoryboardCanvas does the second half: permits, logistics, the nearest hospital, the travel matrix and the convoy.
Quick answer
- Finding a space: Peerspace, Giggster
- Judging the light: Sun Seeker, PhotoPills
- Permits, logistics and the call sheet: StoryboardCanvas
Finding a location and running a location
Two jobs again. The marketplaces find you the place. Nothing on the market runs the day.
Peerspace and Giggster
The marketplaces. Genuinely useful, genuinely large, and the fastest way to find a bookable space in a city you do not know. They stop at the booking.
Sun Seeker, PhotoPills, Google Earth
The scout's actual toolkit. Sun path, golden hour, satellite recce. Nothing has replaced them and nothing needs to.
StudioBinder
Location lists and contacts inside the production suite. Fine, and it feeds the call sheet.
Yamdu and Setkeeper
Deeper location management with permits and logistics. Setkeeper in particular is built by people who have run a location.
StoryboardCanvas
The Locations app treats a location as a production liability, not a photograph. Each one carries its status, address, day rate, unit base, power supply and amenities, its agreement, its permits, its scene dressing and its AI reference. The logistics page records parking, power, facilities, access and the nearest A&E, and it will tell you, in red, that a call sheet cannot go out for a location that has no hospital on file. The travel matrix costs every leg between locations, and a fuel calculator turns the company move into litres, cost and truck kilometres per day, then pushes it into the production carbon model (which otherwise defaults transport to zero, quietly excluding the largest line on most shoots). The map plots every geocoded location in company-move order.
How to choose
- Finding a space? Peerspace, Giggster.
- Judging the light? Sun Seeker, PhotoPills.
- Running the location, the permit, the convoy and the call sheet? StoryboardCanvas.
FAQ
What goes on a location agreement? Dates, fee, access hours, insurance, restoration, and who is liable for what.
Why does a call sheet need the nearest hospital? Because if somebody is injured, nobody should be searching for it. Most jurisdictions and every insurer expect it.
The honest summary
No single tool wins every column, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. What we built StoryboardCanvas to answer is a different question: what if the script, the breakdown, the schedule, the budget, the boards and the call sheet were the same file instead of six exports that drift apart by week two?
Every app is on every tier, there is a free tier that is not a trial, and you can open the whole suite on a finished short film right now, read-only, with no sign-up: try the demo. Pricing is on the pricing page.