Grammarly vs Hemingway vs ProWritingAid
Grammarly, Hemingway, and ProWritingAid each solve a different writing problem. Using the wrong one for your situation will frustrate you. Here's the honest breakdown.
Most writers use Grammarly and stop there. That’s fine — Grammarly is genuinely useful. But it solves one specific problem: catching surface errors. If your issue is writing that’s technically correct but impossible to read, Grammarly won’t help. That’s Hemingway App’s job. If your issue is deeper writing habits — passive voice, weak word choices, structural problems — ProWritingAid is the diagnostic tool for that. Three different jobs.
At a glance
| Grammarly | Hemingway App | ProWritingAid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free / $144 yr (Premium) | Free (web) / $19.99 (desktop) | Free limited / $79 yr |
| Grammar + spelling | Excellent | Basic | Very good |
| Readability analysis | Basic | Excellent | Good |
| Style suggestions | Good (Premium) | Yes (core feature) | Excellent |
| Plagiarism check | Premium only | No | Premium |
| Long-form reports | No | No | Excellent (30+ report types) |
| Works in browser | Yes (extension) | Yes | Yes (extension) |
| Works in Word / Docs | Yes (add-in) | No (copy-paste only) | Yes (add-in) |
| Scrivener integration | No | No | Yes |
| Best for | Everyone — daily error-catching | Blog posts, clear writing | Novelists, long-form writers |
Feature comparison
| Grammarly Free | Hemingway App | ProWritingAid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time suggestions as you type | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tone detection | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Passive voice highlighting | Premium | ✓ | ✓ |
| Adverb + filler word detection | Premium | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sentence length variation check | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contextual thesaurus / synonyms | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Genre-specific writing reports | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Mobile app | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI rewriting suggestions | Premium | ✗ | Premium |
Grammarly — the safe default
Grammarly is the most-used writing tool in the world, and for good reason: it works everywhere (browser extension, Word add-in, iOS/Android keyboard), it catches genuine mistakes, and the free tier is actually good. If you want one tool that works without thinking about it, Grammarly free is that tool.
- Free tier covers: spelling, grammar, punctuation, and basic clarity. That’s 90% of what most people need.
- Premium adds: passive voice, vocabulary enhancement, plagiarism checker, tone detector. Worth it for professional writers; overkill for most.
- Weakness: Grammarly can make your writing sound robotic if you accept every suggestion blindly. It over-corrects for “clarity” by flattening your voice. Read suggestions critically.
- Price reality: $144/yr for Premium is steep. The free tier honestly covers most personal and professional email needs. Only upgrade if you write for a living.
Hemingway App — the readability enforcer
Hemingway doesn’t catch grammar errors. It does one thing: shows you when your writing is too dense to read. Sentences highlighted in red are very hard to read. Yellow means hard. Too many adverbs? Highlighted. Passive voice? Flagged. The web app is completely free. The desktop app ($19.99 one-time) works offline and exports to Word or HTML.
- Best use case: paste a blog post, email, or report in. If it’s lit up like a Christmas tree, rewrite. If it’s mostly clean, you’re good. Takes 30 seconds to check a piece.
- Readability grade: Hemingway gives you a reading grade level. Most professional web content targets Grade 6-8. That’s not dumbing down — it’s respecting your reader’s time.
- Weakness: binary and sometimes wrong. Hemingway App doesn’t understand context. Technical writing intentionally uses complex sentences. Use it as a gut-check, not a gospel.
- The free web version is all most people need. hemingwayapp.com, no account required.
ProWritingAid — the deep-dive tool
ProWritingAid is what you use when you’re writing something long and important — a novel, a thesis, a book proposal, a white paper. Its 30+ report types analyze everything: overused words, repeated sentence starts, clichés, pacing, dialog tags, consistency. It’s not for quick emails. It’s for writers who want to improve, not just check.
- Unique features: Scrivener integration (the only tool on this list that plugs into Scrivener), contextual thesaurus, pacing reports, consistency checker (did you spell the character’s name the same way every time?).
- $79/yr is reasonable for serious writers. Lifetime license is $399 — worth it if you write 5+ years of long-form work.
- Weakness: overwhelming for casual writers. The sheer number of reports is a feature for some, noise for others. Not worth it for email writers or short-form content.
The tool nobody mentions: Wordtune
Wordtune is a different category — it doesn’t flag errors, it rewrites sentences. Paste a sentence, and it gives you 5 alternative phrasings. Useful when you know what you want to say but can’t find the right words. Free tier gives ~10 rewrites/day. Worth bookmarking even if you don’t subscribe.
Who should pick which
The takeaway
If you only install one: Grammarly free as a browser extension. Takes two minutes to set up, catches real mistakes, works in Gmail / Docs / LinkedIn / everything.
If you also write longer pieces: bookmark hemingwayapp.com (free, no account) and paste your draft in before publishing. Takes 60 seconds and catches the “this is a wall of text” problem most writers don’t notice in their own work.