Best Free Grammarly Alternatives in 2026

July 5, 2026 · Hintword team

Grammarly is the default name in writing assistance, and its free tier is genuinely useful for basic grammar and spelling. But the limits are real: the free plan caps AI-powered assistance (around 100 AI prompts per month), and the full experience — advanced rewrites, tone suggestions — lives in Grammarly Pro at $12/month billed annually ($144/year), or $30 month-to-month.

If that's more than your writing budget, here are the free alternatives worth using in 2026 — including one that puts the whole toolkit inside your notes.

What "free" needs to include

A useful Grammarly replacement covers four jobs:

1. Corrections — grammar, spelling, punctuation
2. Rewriting — rephrase awkward sentences, not just underline them
3. Tone — make text more formal, friendlier, more direct
4. Living where you write — a checker you have to visit is a checker you'll skip

1. Hintword — the full AI writing toolkit, free, inside your notes

Hintword is a free notes app with the Grammarly feature set built into the editor:

• Grammar check with a side-by-side preview — see the original and corrected version next to each other and accept in one click, instead of approving squiggles one at a time
• Rephrase — rewrite any selection while keeping the meaning
• Change tone and Summarize — the two most-used "beyond grammar" actions
• No prompt meter. AI actions are part of the free product.

The difference in kind: Grammarly is a layer that follows you around; Hintword is the document itself — an offline-first notes app (with tab collections and a Kanban board attached) where your drafts are already saved, tagged, and shareable. If your writing starts life as notes, drafts, or research, this is the shortest path.

Best for: writing that begins in notes and drafts — and anyone who wants rewrite/tone/summarize without a subscription.

2. LanguageTool — the open-source-rooted checker

LanguageTool is the best-known Grammarly alternative for pure correction, with a solid free tier and support for many languages. Its free plan focuses on grammar, spelling, and some style hints; advanced rephrasing sits behind its paid tier — check their site for current limits.

Best for: multilingual writers and anyone who wants a browser-extension checker most like Grammarly's shape.

3. Your tools' built-in checkers — better than their reputation

Google Docs' grammar suggestions and the built-in spellcheck in modern browsers have quietly improved for years. They won't rephrase or adjust tone, but for catching outright errors in an email they're free, already installed, and private.

Best for: baseline correctness with zero new tools.

4. Editpad's grammar tool — quick one-off checks

Editpad offers a free web-based grammar checker alongside its suite of writing utilities. It's handy for pasting in a one-off text; the trade-offs are the ad-supported experience and that your text lives in a web tool's box rather than a saved document.

Best for: occasional paste-in checks without signing up for anything.

Comparison

Grammarly and competitor details verified July 2026; plans and limits change — check vendors' pages.

The bottom line

If you need a correction layer over every textbox on the internet, Grammarly's free tier remains fine — that's its home turf. But if what you actually do is write things — notes, drafts, documents — you can get grammar, rephrase, tone, and summarize free inside an editor that saves your work offline: try Hintword.