- Grammarly is an all-rounder tool that can correct grammar and suggest ways to enhance your writing, but there's room for improvement.
- If you're looking for an alternative, tools like ProWritingAid and WordTune can help spot grammatical mistakes, offer real-time suggestions, and rephrase options.
- You can also check out Hemingway Editor, Writer, and QuillBot to improve your content's readability and structure.
Admit it or not, incessant YouTube ads have worked in Grammarly’s favor, as this text correction tool has become a default for me and many others. Although the tool is pretty good at sniffing out grammatical errors, it may also offer unnecessary suggestions that more often than not change the entire tone of your content. That’s why I have been on the lookout for alternatives for Grammarly and here’s a list of the best options I’ve managed to find.
Note that the tools listed below are in no particular order. My criteria for this list is to find a substitute for Grammarly for my everyday needs. This includes checking grammar and suggesting ways to improve sentence structure and readability without unnecessary recommendations. To test this, I provided a sample text of one of my earlier works. Now that we have sorted this out, here are some of my picks.
1. ProWritingAid
ProWritingAid was one tool that almost everyone recommended online and after using it, I can see why. It comes the closest to being one of the best alternatives for Grammarly, offering suggestions as you write and underlining words that need correction.
It offers a lot of options to identify repeating phrases, passive voice, readability, overused words, long sentences, and more. All of which you can use for free though some options like AI critique, which comments on your writing do need a premium subscription.
I tried its web extension, and it worked quite well for me. The tool offered real-time suggestions, synonyms, and rephrasing options to change the sentence if I wanted to. There is also something called Sparks, which lets you rephrase the selected part of the text in different tones and styles. But you can use it only thrice a day in the free version.
Though it is not perfect, as I find, the suggestion underlines are not as obvious to the eyes as they are in Grammarly, causing you to miss out on some of them. And while it does not try to correct my sentence tone, it does show recommendations to add a comma now and then. Still a good option nonetheless.
PROS CONS Tool bundles a lot of features Constantly offers comma suggestions Lets you rephrase sentences and change tone Text correction underlines are quite faint Offers synonyms of selected words UI feels cluttered and overwhelming Most options are available to use for free
Price: Free, paid plan starts at $30 per month
2. QuillBot
QuillBot is a widely popular spelling, grammar checker, and paraphrasing tool that has even received an award as Google’s Favorite Extension of 2023. While I have used this tool in the past, my experience with it was limited but after using it for a while now, I can see why it is so popular among so many users. It packs in so many valuable features like a summarizer, language translator, plagiarism checker, grammar checker, and citation generator.
While other tools lock such features behind a paywall, QuillBot at least lets you use them even if it is at a limited capacity. There is a word limit when using its paraphrasing tool but what I liked is that it highlights what it changed and what it kept from the original sentence. It also does the job at once instead of having to rephrase one sentence at a time.
But I am here to test it against Grammarly so that’s what I did. After using it with some of my sample documents, it was quick to detect errors. Like Grammarly, I could click on the highlighted mistakes to fix them. I had no trouble using this tool and there were none of those pesky premium suggestions that Grammarly loves to sprinkle. So I could see myself using it daily.
The fun did not last long though as the tool ran into some bug where it couldn’t detect any issues in the text even though I could spot some myself. I tried refreshing the page and even closing the browser nothing helped. While the extension did not serve its purpose, I might come back to its online tool just for the sake of its free features.
PROS CONS Rephrases entire paragraphs at once Extension can crash at times No word limit for the grammar checker in the free version Can translate texts in different languages Most features available to use for free
Price: Free, Premium plan starts at $9.95 per month
3. WordTune
This is a must-have tool and I am glad that I came across it. The reason is that it offers a bunch of AI-powered tools to help improve your writing or write stuff for you, saving you time and effort. Or I could help you out if you are going through writer’s block and need help with some inspiration. It has templates to write blogs, social media posts, marketing emails, resumes, and more.
WordTune can even summarize documents, let you ask questions related to them, take notes, or do a semantic search to look for a particular phrase in the document. It is great for spoiled brats like me who are too lazy to read lengthy paragraphs for research. There is also a feature called Spice which can continue the sentence for you and write conclusions, counter arguments or give an analogy.
By this point, I was experiencing an existential crisis from simply looking at what AI can now achieve, so I moved on to the text correction feature. The free version offers unlimited fixes and works similarly to Grammarly. It was accurate and spotted the obvious flaws in my sample text. It also identified several areas that can improve sentence clarity, but require monthly subscription.
I also enjoyed the paraphrasing tools provided at the top like Rewrite, Casual, Professional, Shorten, and Expand. But I feel they can be moved to some other menu because having them at the top kept tempting me to use them and while I can do so, things like this just take away the fun and effort from writing. But I can see it coming in handy for a student. Overall, WordTune is genuinely a decent replacement for a text editor like Google Docs, but not so much for Grammarly.
PROS CONS Useful AI writing tools and templates Daily limit on Spice and Rewrite features The Spice tool can complete sentences for you Text editor can have some more features Paraphrasing options are easily accessible at the top A good text editor with the necessary formatting options
Price: Free, paid plan starts at $24.99 per month (comes down to $9.99/month with annual plan)
4. Writer
Next on this list is Writer. This brings some interesting features that I haven’t seen anywhere else; like custom rules for words, phrases, and symbols. Once set, the tool will check your text against these parameters. There is a plagiarism checker that crawls the web to check your content against others. It also comes with an inclusivity checker which will flag harmful, sensitive, or derogatory terms that you should avoid.
If it isn’t already obvious then let me clear out the confusion. Writer is targeted towards businesses and marketing agencies that would prefer to keep a similar tone across all their work while avoiding touchy subjects. I think it does a commendable job when it comes to this kind of usage. You can also create Snippets that are just shortcut words for frequently used phrases and templates.
While these features do entice me, they are not what I am here for. I looked for its extension and installed it on my browser. The first obvious issue was that it did not underline or highlight the mistakes in my text. Instead, I have to click on the hovering icon to bring up Writer’s sidebar that shows grammar corrections, and suggestions for clarity, delivery, and inclusivity. It also grades your writing based on how readable it is.
Other than having to bring up a sidebar to view corrections, I don’t have any major complaints with this tool. The sad part is that the Writer does not have a free version. It is all paid but you can try it out for free for 14 days. I don’t recommend it as an alternative to Grammarly because it is an enterprise tool and expensive for an individual.
PROS CONS Checks for plagiarism in real-time Does not highlight mistakes while writing Lets you set custom rules for your content No free version requires a paid plan Flags insensitive words and phrases Can write short-form content using AI
Price: Paid, starts at $18 per month (up to 5 users)
5. Hemingway Editor
I feel that Hemingway Editor is a writing tool best suited for those who write long, complex sentences, rather than for people like me who need help with grammar. The tool focuses more on the readability aspect than fixing your grammar issues. Its name comes from American novelist Ernest Hemingway and, like his writing, the tool makes your writing easily readable.
The editor is simple in approach as it highlights words and sentences in five different colors. Each one uniquely identifies different issues. Yellow is for sentences that are hard to read, red is for lines that are even more difficult. Blue is for adverbs, green is for words in passive voice, and purple marks words with simpler alternatives.
When I tried Hemingway Editor, I found its interface to be its best part, as it was pretty easy to get used to. It showed all the info I needed in a simple color-coded format. I could easily tell what was the issue with my sentences depending on the color they were highlighted in.
The only problem is that while it does help you identify the issues with readability, it does little to help you solve them, at least in the free version. You may have to resort to another tool if you can’t figure out how to improve your sentence structure. Moreover, I wouldn’t say it can replace Grammarly for me as it hardly pointed out any grammatical errors.
PROS CONS Helps improve readability Does not help with grammar issues Highlights issues with different colors No suggestions to fix readability issues Easy-to-understand interface Limited features in the free version Replaces complex words with simpler ones
Price: Free, paid plan starts at $10 per month
6. Ginger
At first glance, you might confuse Ginger as a knockoff of Grammarly because of its logo and color scheme and I have to say that it isn’t far behind. This is another popular substitute that does offer a few neat tricks and a clean interface. This is a blessing because writing is already tough and you don’t want to deal with a complex page filled with multiple options in attempts to improve it.
The next good thing is that instead of having you fix each mistake one by one, it automatically fixes errors with just one click while highlighting the things that changed. Like Grammarly, you can also switch between U.S. and U.K. English.
After installing Ginger’s extension and using it for a brief period, I can say that the tool has its ups and downs. It offers real-time suggestions as I write and even includes a rephrase button to change the sentence which is something we have seen in other options above. But when it spots a mistake, it shows how the entire sentence will look like when you fix the word rather than just the word itself. This can be useful as you can see whether correcting said mistake makes the sentence read better or not.
But it is not perfect. It could not correct some obvious issues. It also does not help that it can only check 900 characters at a time in the free version. Meanwhile, there is no such limit on Grammarly. So more often than not, you would be reaching the weekly limit if you are working on a long document. Also, it provides some unnecessary suggestions like Grammarly that do not improve the sentence. However, I would say it can be a good alternative if you do casual writing.
PROS CONS Rephrasing is available in the free version Can only check for 900 sentences at a time Corrects multiple mistakes with one click Sometimes it overlooks obvious mistakes Works well on most websites with web extensions Provides unnecessary suggestions Offers multiple options to correct a mistake
Pricing: Free, paid plan starts at $13.99 per month
7. LanguageTool
Taking a break from these feature-rich tools, I looked for something simple and came across LanguageTool. This grammar-checking and paraphrasing tool does only a few things but it does them well. It can help paraphrase entire sentences to a short, formal, or fluent tone. You can also double-click on certain words to look up their synonyms, similar to ProWritingAid, which I adored.
This tool also supports multiple languages. Although the list of languages isn’t long, it covers most of the essential ones. You can even interpret your sentences in said languages.
But the real topic of discussion is grammar-checking. Like Grammarly and other tools we have discussed in this list, it provides suggestions to fix grammatical problems in your sentences. Given it is a machine learning tool, I cannot comment on how good of a job it did because it gets better with usage but for my few tests, it did well enough. It spotted the mistakes that it needed to.
You can install its extension and use it to bring it up no matter where you write. But what irks me here is that it doesn’t offer fixes or suggestions when writing long texts in the free version. You can upgrade to its premium plan which has 150,000 characters per text field limit. This is an issue we faced with Ginger as well. So for someone like me who writes long blogs and articles, it is best to move on to other tools.
PROS CONS Cheapest premium plan pricing Does not work with long texts in the free version Can help paraphrase sentences with a click Certain grammatical corrections work only with the paid subscription Provides word synonyms and clarity suggestions Supports multiple languages
Price: Free, Premium plan starts at $24.99 per month (comes down to $4.99 per month with the 2-year plan)
8. Slick Write
Slick Write is the last online tool in this list not because it is bad but because, unlike other tools that correct your mistakes, it critiques them instead. This caters to those who want to improve the writing, grammar, and readability of their sentences.
It shows you various metrics about your writing like the use of varied vocabulary, the structure of your sentence, flow, passive voice, and more. Everything is cleanly laid out in color-coated highlights, pie charts, and graphs to help you understand which areas you can improve in.
It is already apparent that it is not the right Grammarly substitute that most people might have clicked for. But it can help you be that alternative if you write on a professional level. With my experience with all these tools, none of them are a hundred percent perfect, and at times I have to rely on my guts to know what does and does not need to be fixed. Slick Write just helps you get the confidence to make that decision.
Will I use it instead of Grammarly? No. But I will utilize it to see in which areas I can improve and there is nothing wrong with some insightful analysis of my work. Also, it is completely free so that’s another plus.
PROS CONS Offers detailed analysis of your writing Does not auto-correct grammar or spelling mistakes Displays data in charts and colored highlights Completely free to use Helps improve your writing skills
Price: Free
This was quite a journey, and I got to experience some really useful tools. If I had stumbled upon some of these tools before using Grammarly, I am sure, I would be using them instead. But if you ask me which tool would I recommend switching to in 2024, my pick would be either QuillBot or ProWritingAid. The Writer tool would have made it too if it were free to use.
The reason for going with the free plan is that I know I am not going to be using most of the other features, and they will also influence my writing a lot which is why it’s better to stick with the free plan. What did you think about these tools? Tell us which one you liked the most in the comments below.
