The DM Screen vs Foundry VTT: which one fits your table?

What Foundry VTT is

Foundry is a virtual tabletop you buy once and host yourself. That ownership is the whole point: your data lives on your machine or your server, there is no subscription, and the module ecosystem is the deepest and most powerful in the hobby. Community developers have built automation for nearly everything, so a well-configured Foundry world can compute attacks, track effects, animate spells, and roll damage with a click. The Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e systems in particular are meticulous. For a GM who enjoys the build as much as the game, nothing else comes close to how far Foundry can be pushed.

Where The DM Screen wins

The DM Screen asks nothing of you before you start. There is no server to stand up, no port to forward, no host to rent, no module list to curate. You open a tab, land in a guest sandbox, and start prepping. It runs on a phone first, so the tool you run the fight from is the one already in your hand at the table. The battle tracker handles HP, concentration, death saves, legendary actions, and one-tap rests. The dice are simulated physics. Table mode throws initiative and party status onto a TV so your players read the room instead of their screens.

It also spans eight systems out of the box with their real mechanics, from D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e to Draw Steel, Daggerheart, Blades in the Dark, and Fate. Real-time multiplayer is free on every tier, and everything exports, so you are never locked into one machine or one host.

Where Foundry wins

If you want a tricked-out remote table and you enjoy building it, Foundry is unmatched. The module ecosystem lets you automate rules to a degree no zero-setup tool can, own your data outright, and reshape the interface to your exact table. Buying it once and never paying again is genuinely appealing if you play for years. For a technically comfortable GM running crunchy tactical combat online, a dialed-in Foundry world is the best experience in the category.

The honest cost is the setup and the platform. Foundry expects you to host it, whether that means leaving a machine running at home or paying a third party to host it for you, and getting the right stack of modules working takes real time and occasional troubleshooting when an update breaks one of them. It is a desktop-first tool. None of that is a flaw so much as the price of the power, but it is the opposite of picking up a phone and running a fight in the next two minutes.

When to pick which

If you run a remote group, you like automation, and building the perfect rig is part of the fun for you, pick Foundry. The ceiling is higher than anything else here and you will keep finding new things to bolt on.

If you meet in person, you would rather spend your prep time on the story than on a module list, or you run a homebrew game across several systems from a phone at the table, pick The DM Screen. The two are not really rivals for the same evening: Foundry is the workshop, The DM Screen is the screen you actually run the table from.

Pricing side by side

Approximate and in USD. Foundry sells a one-time license and does not host it for you; check foundryvtt.com for current pricing.

Common questions