• Grammarly
    • It has a macOS app that hooks into every desktop app through accessibility APIs
    • Premium: $12/month (billed annually)
    • 🆕 Generative AI features
  • LanguageTool
    • Open core
    • Premium: €3.99/month (billed annually)
    • Can be self-hosted for maximum privacy
      • Self-hosted version is the free SaaS version, no way to self-host the premium language rules
      • ”For larger business customers, we also offer an on-premise premium version.”
    • HTTP API → Obsidian integration: https://github.com/Clemens-E/obsidian-languagetool-plugin
    • Has been around for 10 years based on GitHub history
    • Supports 30+ languages
    • Free vs. premium
      • Pricing page gives actual examples of the rules that are premium only
      • Looks like there are many premium rules that Grammarly offers for free
  • ProWritingAid
    • Browser extension only
    • The desktop app is only available in premium
    • Premium: $10/month (billed annually)
  • Harper
    • ”Harper tries to do one thing well: find grammatical and spelling errors in English text.”
    • Written in Rust
    • 100% local and private
    • List of rules
    • Missing features as of 2025-01-15:
      • No browser extension yet
      • Doesn’t work with arbitrary desktop apps, only Obsidian and VSCode

As of 2023-02-03:

  • Both Grammarly and LanguageTool can be used outside of browsers on the desktop
  • As a free user, Grammarly checks more error types
  • As a paid user, features are more or less the same, but Grammarly is 4x more expensive than LanguageTool