Best Grammarly Alternatives in 2026 (Free and Paid)
Grammarly is useful, but it is expensive ($12–$15/month for Premium), increasingly restrictive on its free tier, and not always the right fit — especially for multilingual writers, privacy-conscious users, or anyone who wants an open-source tool they can self-host. Here are the best alternatives that actually work.
Why Look for a Grammarly Alternative?
The most common reasons to switch: Grammarly Premium costs $144/year and the free plan has gotten stingier over time. The browser extension can be intrusive and occasionally sends your text to external servers — a concern for legal, medical, and confidential writing. And for non-English writers, Grammarly's multilingual support is limited compared to alternatives.
If you mainly need grammar and spelling checks without the upsell interruptions, several alternatives match or exceed Grammarly's free tier at no cost.
LanguageTool — Best Free Grammarly Alternative
LanguageTool is the strongest overall free alternative. It checks grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style in 30+ languages and offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, a Microsoft Word add-in, a Google Docs add-on, a desktop app, and a REST API for developers.
The free tier has no word-count limit — it checks your full document. The main limitation is that advanced style suggestions (overly complex sentences, passive voice overuse) are Premium features, similar to Grammarly. Premium costs €59.90/year (approximately $65), well below Grammarly's price.
LanguageTool is open-source (LGPL license) and can be self-hosted, which matters for legal teams, healthcare writers, and developers who need to keep text processing on-premises. This is something Grammarly cannot offer at any price.
Best for: Multilingual writers, privacy-conscious users, developers who want API access, anyone on a budget.
Harper — Open-Source, Privacy-First
Harper is a newer open-source grammar checker that runs entirely locally — no text leaves your machine. It launched with strong traction in the developer community (645+ points on Hacker News) specifically because it eliminates the privacy concern of cloud-based grammar tools.
Harper focuses on English prose clarity rather than comprehensive multilingual support. It integrates with Neovim, VS Code, Zed, Helix, and other editors via LSP (Language Server Protocol), making it the natural choice for developers who write documentation or blog posts in their code editor.
The trade-off: Harper is less polished than LanguageTool for everyday consumer writing. It lacks a browser extension and does not check Google Docs. For technical writers and developers who want local-only grammar checking inside their editor, it is the best option available.
Best for: Developers, technical writers, anyone with strict privacy requirements.
Hemingway Editor — For Clarity and Readability
Hemingway Editor takes a different approach than Grammarly. Instead of flagging grammar errors, it highlights sentences that are hard to read, overuse passive voice, contain unnecessary adverbs, or are too complex. The color-coded interface shows exactly which sentences need simplifying.
The web version is completely free. A desktop app for offline use costs $19.99 one-time — no subscription. For bloggers, content marketers, and anyone writing for a general audience, Hemingway improves readability in a way Grammarly does not prioritize.
The limitation: Hemingway does not catch spelling errors or grammar mistakes. It is a clarity tool, not a comprehensive proofreader. Use it alongside a spell-checker rather than as a replacement.
Best for: Bloggers, content marketers, business writers who want cleaner, more readable prose.
ProWritingAid — Best Paid Alternative
ProWritingAid is the closest paid alternative to Grammarly Premium. It goes deeper on style analysis — overused words, sentence length variation, pacing, dialogue tags, clichés, and consistency checks across a long document. The depth of reports is unmatched, making it especially popular with fiction writers and long-form non-fiction authors.
Pricing: $20/month or $79/year (Premium), versus Grammarly Premium at $12/month billed annually. ProWritingAid also offers a lifetime license at $399, which pays off after 3 years compared to Grammarly's annual subscription.
ProWritingAid integrates with Scrivener, Word, Google Docs, and most browsers. The free tier limits documents to 500 words at a time, which is restrictive but enough to evaluate the tool.
Best for: Fiction writers, authors, long-form writers who want deep style analysis beyond grammar and spelling.
Quick Comparison
| Tool | Price | Grammar | Style | Offline | Multilingual | |------|-------|---------|-------|---------|--------------| | Grammarly Free | Free | ✓ | Limited | No | Limited | | Grammarly Premium | $12/mo | ✓ | ✓ | No | Limited | | LanguageTool Free | Free | ✓ | Limited | No | 30+ languages | | LanguageTool Premium | ~$5/mo | ✓ | ✓ | No | 30+ languages | | Harper | Free | ✓ | ✓ | Yes | English only | | Hemingway Editor | Free (web) | No | ✓ | $19.99 | English only | | ProWritingAid | $6.58/mo (annual) | ✓ | ✓ | No | English only |
Which Should You Choose?
If you want free and capable: LanguageTool free tier handles most writing needs without Grammarly's upgrade prompts.
If you want total privacy: Harper runs locally on your machine — nothing is sent to external servers.
If you want readability coaching: Hemingway Editor is free on the web and better than Grammarly for simplifying sentences.
If you want deep style analysis: ProWritingAid goes further than Grammarly for long-form writing, especially fiction.
For plain text manipulation, case conversion, and text formatting tools that complement any writing workflow, the FlipMyCase text tools handle everything from case conversion to text cleaning — no account required. The Readability Analyzer on this site runs a Flesch-Kincaid score on any text without sending it anywhere.