ProWritingAid
A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.
A writing editor that goes beyond grammar into style: pacing, repetition, sentence variety and readability, with long-form reports aimed at manuscripts.
Build a style checker from rules you choose. STACK - Vale for prose linting, in your editor and in CI WHY VALE - It reads rules from YAML files in your repository, so your house style is versioned and reviewable - No service, no account, no text leaving the machine THE RULES WORTH HAVING - Banned words and their replacements, as a list you actually maintain - Sentence length warning past a threshold you choose - Passive voice flagged but not forbidden — it is sometimes correct - Repeated word within N words, which catches more real problems than grammar checking does READABILITY - Compute a readability score per file and print it; do not gate on it IN CI - Fail on errors, warn on suggestions - Run only on changed files, or a large repository becomes unusably slow Include the Vale configuration, three custom rules and the CI step.
What you lose
- Style reports built on linguistic analysis rather than on rules, which is the part that is not a regular expression
- Integrations into every editor and browser, maintained as each one changes
- Explanations that teach rather than just correct
If you would rather not build
- Hemingway, for readability alone
The escape hatch
open source · no votes, no paid placement
LanguageTool
$0Grammar and style checking you can self-host, with browser add-ons.
languagetool-org/languagetoolfree · open source
Why this verdict
our own opinion · changed only by a person
54/100
Verdict kinda at 54. Vale covers the mechanical half well and keeps your text on your own machine; the linguistic style analysis is what you leave behind.
History
tracked since 10 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten
Questions about ProWritingAid
answered from the record above
Is ProWritingAid free?
No — the plan we track is $30 a month. Premium at around $30/month billed monthly, roughly $10 a month on an annual plan.
Can you replace ProWritingAid by building your own?
ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 54 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.
How much does ProWritingAid cost?
$30 a month on Premium — $360 a year. Recorded 10 Aug 2026.
What do you lose by replacing ProWritingAid?
Style reports built on linguistic analysis rather than on rules, which is the part that is not a regular expression; Integrations into every editor and browser, maintained as each one changes; Explanations that teach rather than just correct. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to ProWritingAid?
Yes: Vale, LanguageTool. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.
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