The Best Grammarly Alternatives in 2022

Looking for a grammar checker? There are a lot of them out there.

Whether you’re writing a novel, email, essay, report, or even a tweet, it pays to check your writing for mistakes. But we don’t always have time to edit thoroughly. That’s where grammar checkers and editing tools can help speed things up.

You want to find the tool that will make the most improvement to your writing while also being good value for money. But how do you know without trying all of them?

We’ve tried some of the best grammar checkers on the market, so you don’t have to. Here’s our list of the top 15 grammar checkers.

If you’re considering grammar checkers, you’ve probably heard of Grammarly.

Grammarly was initially created to help students check their writing, but it’s now used by all kinds of writers who want to make sure their writing is error-free before they share it.

15 Awesome Grammarly Alternatives

1. ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is a fully customizable editing tool for professionals, fiction writers, students, bloggers, and casual writers.

With 25+ reports based on edits real editors would make, ProWritingAid helps guide you through a personalized editing process that will help you make your writing the best it can be for your reader and purpose.

With its tailored goals and visualizations, you’ll see where your writing works and where it doesn’t at a glance, so you can get on with the actual work of editing.

With ProWritingAid’s Free and Premium plans, you get:

• Realtime grammar, spelling, and style checking
• Personalized goals according to 40+ document types so you can prioritize the most important changes
• 25+ in-depth writing reports on structure, readability, word choice, repeated words, fiction elements, and more (Grammarly offers four reports)
• A browser extension so you can edit wherever you write
• In-tool articles, quizzes, and videos, so you understand the changes you make
• Document storage in our online Web Editor

With ProWritingAid Premium, you get access to:

• Text expander tool
• Plagiarism checking
• Custom style guide
• Integrations for MS Word (Windows & Mac), Google Docs, Scrivener, Final Draft, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge

ProWritingAid gives you the tools you need to edit big-picture elements like structure and overall readability all the way down to individual word choice.

You’ll learn as you edit, helping you avoid mistakes in the future and incorporate new techniques. Plus, with our extensions and integrations, you can edit everything from a novel to a Medium article, and track your progress, all with one software.

You can get ProWritingAid Premium for $20/month or $79/year. It’s one of the most comprehensive and competitively priced checkers on the market, offering you more editing tools, more reports, and more integrations for less.

And if you’re ready to commit to better writing long term, ProWritingAid is also the only grammar checker on this list to offer a lifetime price.

For $399, you’ll get all of ProWritingAid’s premium features, updates, and integrations for life. Or, you could spend the same amount on less than 3 years of Grammarly Premium.

Bottom line: If you want a better alternative to Grammarly, then try ProWritingAid for free.

2. Ginger

Ginger Software has features for non-fiction and fiction writers.

As well as grammar, spelling, and style checks, it also offers a read-aloud feature as well as text translation into 60 languages.

Ginger focuses on helping you edit for accuracy line by line — you won’t see much high-level feedback on your writing. When we tested it, Ginger’s grammar and spelling checker missed some suggestions found by ProWritingAid and Grammarly.

Its major drawback is that you have to paste your writing into the app, meaning you lose your existing document formatting when you paste back into your chosen writing platform.

Ginger Premium costs $19.99/month, $150/year, or $240/2-years, with no lifetime price.

• Where can I use it?: Desktop for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android

Bottom line: Offers useful features for free and premium users at a competitive price, but isn’t as accurate or intuitive as other grammar checkers on this list.

3. LanguageTool

LanguageTool is a little different from other checkers on this list, with more tools for professionals and teams.

If you want to check writing in a language other than English, LanguageTool supports grammar checking in 30+ languages. You’ll find checks for incorrect ISBN and IBAN numbers, names, and titles, as well as grammar and spelling checks.

If you want to edit long-form content, LanguageTool probably isn’t for you. The Premium version limits you to 100,000 characters (or 20,000 words) at a time.

• Where can I use it?: Mac and Windows via Desktop App, Google Drive, MS Word, LibreOffice, and OpenOffice.

You get basic grammar and spelling checking on the free version. All other features require premium. You’ll pay $19/month, $39/quarterly, $59/year or $99/2-years. Business pricing starts at $106/year for two users.

Bottom line: Great for corporate teams working in multiple languages. Not as useful for fiction and content writers — you’ll find better features for you in other checkers.

4. Writer

Writer offers grammar checking tools for all kinds of writers, but many of its features are specifically useful for corporate users.

It integrates with commonly used sales platforms and content management systems, is SOC2- and HIPPA-compliant, and includes a dedicated style tool to help you use terminology consistency. Like Grammarly, it also checks the tone of your writing.

Writer costs $99/year for individuals, making it one of the more expensive alternatives on this list, and starts at $162/year for teams.

• Where can I use it?: Google Docs, Figma, Chrome, Outlook, and MS Word

Bottom line: A cheaper alternative to Grammarly Business with many of the same features. Fewer standout features for casual, content, and fiction writers.

5. Outwrite

Outwrite is designed for light academic editing and writers creating short-form content.

On the free plan, you’ll find spelling and grammar checking, writing statistics (including readability and grade level), and a thesaurus.

Outwrite Pro includes passive voice rephrasing, a paraphrasing tool, and style suggestions (many of the checkers on this list include these for free.)

If you want to learn more about writing and grammar as you edit, Outwrite might not be the checker for you. You won’t see any explanations on their suggestions. The free version includes all of Outwrite’s integrations, but hides some suggestions.

Outwrite Pro will cost you $19.95/month or $96/year.

• Where can I use it?: Browser Extension, MS Word, Web, Web App

Bottom line: Outwrite offers fewer features than some of the cheaper alternatives.

6. Hemingway

Hemingway isn’t a grammar checker. Its main purpose is checking readability, giving you a grade level so you can see who will be able to understand your work.

Beyond giving you a readability grade, Hemingway also helps you spot passive voice, complex sentences and phrases, and adverbs. However, it doesn’t offer specific advice on how to fix them.

Hemmingway’s Online Editor is free, and their Desktop App requires a one-time payment of $19.99.

Bottom line: If you just want to check readability, Hemingway offers a streamlined solution. If you want readability and more checks, ProWritingAid offers a dedicated Readability Report among 25 others.

7. Linguix

Linguix offers grammar, style, and spelling checking, online document storage, and a paraphrase tool, making it best-suited for non-fiction writers.

Unlike Grammarly and alternatives like Ginger, Linguix gives you statistics for your entire document. However, like Grammarly, they hide certain suggestions for free users, including readability and structural insights. This can leave your work with basic errors like redundant words, confused words, some misspelled words (like a long in the screenshot below), and punctuation issues.

Like Ginger, you have to paste your documents into the editor, meaning you’ll lose your formatting when you’ve finished editing. ProWritingAid maintains your formatting and saves your changes right back to your original document.

For $96/year, Linguix Premium offers several extra features like the paraphraser, synonyms, private mode, and text expander tool. There isn’t monthly subscription. Enhanced security doesn’t come as standard with Linguix, suggesting that your writing isn’t as safe in the free version.

• Where can I use it?: Word Add-In, Chrome, Online Editor

Bottom line: A competitively priced alternative to Grammarly if you are willing to risk poorer accuracy. Linguix falls short for writers who want to make deeper improvements.

8. WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke is aimed at academic, business, ESL, and casual non-fiction writers.

There is no free version, but its premium version includes grammar, punctuation, style, and spelling corrections. You also get automatic translation and plagiarism checking.

The interface is far more basic than most of the other checkers on this list. WhiteSmoke offers “one-click proofreading,” though we found that this one-click approach automatically added errors to our work, requiring more proofreading time.

With no free version, you have to commit to a yearly or three-year WhiteSmoke subscription right away. You can choose between a web-only or full premium subscription, which is where you’ll find their desktop app and one-click proofreading.

WhiteSmoke is $59.95/year for the web version, $79.95/year for the desktop version, and $137.95/year for a 3-user business license.

• Where can I use it?: Web App for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Opera; Desktop App for Windows, Mac.

Bottom Line: You’ll find more features and easier editing experiences elsewhere.

9. Sapling

Sapling AI is for customer-facing teams and individuals, such as customer service agents. It integrates with popular customer support platforms like Zendesk, LiveChat, Freshdesk, and others to help customer support agents send accurate responses faster.

It comes with an in-built bank of sentence auto-completion phrases based on common industry responses, and you can save your own frequent replies under shortcuts with their text expander tool.

• Where can I use it?: Chrome and Firefox Extensions

Bottom Line: Best for helping customer service teams save time with purpose-built tools. Other tools like ProWritingAid offer similar text expansion capabilities alongside more rigorous grammar and readability enhancements.

10. Scribens

Scribens offers many of the tools we’ve seen in more advanced checkers like Grammarly, but with a less advanced interface. If you are willing to spend more time implementing editing suggestions and don’t need the extra tools offered elsewhere, this cheaper checker could be for you.

However, the premium version limits you to 200,000 characters, and the interface gets difficult to use for longer documents with long lists of suggestions that are difficult to work through.

Scribens offers one of the cheapest premium subscriptions on this list, costing $9.90/month, $19.90/3-months and $49.90/year.

• Where can I use it?: Google Docs & Slides, Browsers, Web App, MS Office, Windows, Android, OpenOffice, LibreOffice

Bottom line: Few extra features, but very affordable with pretty robust grammar and style checking.

11. Virtual Writing Tutor

Virtual Writing Tutor is a free grammar checker for students and English as a Second Language learners. If you’re not writing for study, you won’t find this software very useful.

Virtual Writing Tutor is set apart by its focus on academic writing. It checks your essay against rubrics to give you feedback on the specific areas examiners are looking for.

You can see your score for argument strength, and set your desired paragraph length to check you’re meeting requirements. These are all tools that are not offered by other checkers on this list.

Unlike many of the other checkers here, you can’t actually edit your writing in VWT itself. You’ll need to move between the report it generates and your chosen writing software to implement their suggestions.

Virtual Writing Tutor is free for anyone to use, but you can run reports on more words with a free account.

Bottom line: Use Virtual Writing Tutor alongside a grammar checker to make sure your writing is both technically accurate and meets examiner expectations for vocabulary use and argument.

12. Slick Write

Slick Write only offers grammar and style edits, so is best suited to writers who only want a light final edit for their work.

The interface is a little clunky. The suggestions appear on a separate tab to the editing area, so you’ll have to jump between screens to implement their critiques. If you’re looking for spelling correction, you’ll need to use another checker.

Slick Write is free.

• Where can I use it?: Web Version for all browsers, Browser Extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

Bottom line: Slick Write’s features are basic but accurate. However, for an all-in-one edit, look elsewhere.

13. PaperRater

PaperRater is a grammar checker for students. You can use it to check for grammar and spelling errors and plagiarism on both the free and premium plans. Its stand-out feature is that it gives you a provisional grade for your paper, but beware — this isn’t always reliable.

PaperRater offers basing spelling, grammar, and style corrections. However you’ll miss out on key suggestions to help you improve your essays, like redundant words and passive voice highlights.

PaperRater Premium is $14.95/month or $95.40/year. Other checkers on this list offer more features, higher accuracy, and are easier to use.

• Where can I use it?: Online version only (works in all browsers)

Bottom line: PaperRater free is a useful plagiarism checking solution for students on a budget, but other checkers do more for less.

14. StyleWriter by EditorSoftware

StyleWriter is a tool to help professionals, technical writers, and journalists to tailor their writing effectively to their reader.

It focuses on removing jargon and simplifying language. You can change your audience to in-house, public, or specialist to change the suggestions you see.

While StyleWriter uses resources that real editors would use in these contexts, like graded word lists, the interface is very dated and difficult to interpret, making it hard to use their suggestions.

Many of the other checkers on this list take similar resources and generate user-friendly reports alongside other features like grammar and style checking.

StyleWriter Basic costs $90, Standard is $120, and Professional is $190. The difference lies in the number of reports it creates. However, you then have to pay $30 a year to upgrade, and pay for tech support.

• Where Can I Use It?: Desktop App for Windows

Bottom Line: Severely priced out by cheaper and more usable alternatives.

15. NOUNPLUS

NOUNPLUS offers free grammar checking in English, Chinese, and French.

It automatically implements its improvements for your writing. However, we found that this just inserted errors into our text rather than fixing them. There are spelling and grammar errors on the website itself, which is another red flag.

NOUNPLUS is a free paste-to-check service.

Bottom line: NOUNPLUS is inaccurate. Don’t use it to check your writing.

Best Grammarly Alternative 2022

So, how do you pick the grammar checker for you? Our tip is to prioritize accuracy and convenience. If you have to use multiple checkers to edit your writing, you’ll end up not editing at all.

ProWritingAid integrates wherever you write, allowing you to bring full editing power to every essay, tweet, report, story, and email. Its unique combination of intuitive, actionable suggestions and reports with in-built learning resources makes it the most comprehensive and competitively priced checker on this list.

Still not sure? Try ProWritingAid now — it’s free.