Grammarly – Good Or Bad Or Alternatives
I’m sure that many of you have been using Grammarly to assist with your writing skills. I have been using Grammarly Pro since 2019, but started with the free version, I must admit the free version of Grammarly is not bad.
My paid subscription came to an end a couple of weeks ago, I deliberately didn’t renew the subscription, as I thought I would try the free version of Grammarly again. Since Grammarly started using or relying on AI more, I have found the software much more irritating and annoying. I believe it’s constantly trying to check words and punctuation that is absolutely fine. My spelling is pretty good, but I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert on punctuation, however, it does appear that Grammarly likes to change words and punctuation just for the sake of it.
I’m amazed that Grammarly can carry out an update on the software and all of a sudden their punctuation changes. Lots of commas are suddenly added before the word “and” and all of a sudden “semi-colons” suddenly appear to be necessary everywhere. Why did that happen?!
Often, I will write in a Word document and then copy and plain paste the document into WordPress or whichever platform working within. It’s amazing how I can correct everything in Word, using Grammarly and then when I plain paste the document into WordPress, Grammarly will then want to change the words that I have already corrected and allegedly find more mistakes!
I must admit that the free version of Grammarly is much less annoying than the paid version. I’m wondering about just sticking with the free version of Grammarly. However, as expected, Grammarly has offered me a 50% discount to upgrade to the Pro version again.
I was wondering if any Wealthy Affiliate members use alternative software to Grammarly, I’m sure there are other similar spell checkers available.
Something that put me off Grammarly about 18 months ago was when I found that it had a terrific amount of settings, which was set to encourage wokeness. I won’t say too much in this blog post for obvious reasons, but all I want is a spellchecker, not someone’s political stance. The default settings in Grammarly are absolutely terrible. If anyone is using Grammarly I would make sure and check your settings, otherwise, they try and encourage you to write with a certain slant that definitely goes against the grain with me.
Any thoughts or help is appreciated, please.
Thank you for reading.
Roy
Recent Comments
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I have been using Grammarly since June 2018 and used the pro version for the last four years. I also use Hemingway Editor.
Late last year, I tried the Quilbot free version for several months. I didn't like the suggested edits. I may still try the upgraded Quilbot version to make a better comparison with Grammarly.
Glen 🙂
Thank you for commenting, Glenn, it's appreciated.
It's fascinating how many words Grammarly has corrected or allegedly corrected, it does now make huge amounts of mistakes.
It appears that Language Tool may be a good option, as several members have suggested using it.
Have a great day.
Roy
Roy,
I dismissed so many blue lines that I finally uninstalled it and went "In Search Of" the next best grammar checker.
Guess what, after toying with 3 alternatives, and giving Hemmingway a try, I succumbed and reinstalled the free Grammarly extension.
No, I do not pay for Grammarly, and no, I haven't found anything better.
Don
Good morning Don,
It's interesting to hear member's different experiences with various grammar checkers. There are so many lines in Grammarly, with all different colours, most of them can be dismissed. It actually becomes a time waster, because once you correct one line, then another line will appear and so on.
I kind of think the free version of Grammarly is almost better, it's certainly not quite so annoying.
I did try the Hemingway editor some time ago, but it did not seem to do much for me.
Thank you for your input, it's appreciated.
Have a great day.
Roy
Roy, I totally get what you mean about Grammarly!
I used it for a while, but it kept making unnecessary changes, which got frustrating.
Since switching to LanguageTool, writing has been so much smoother. It's cheaper than Grammarly, even with their discounts, and the best part? It doesn’t constantly interrupt me with suggestions that change my writing style. It just fixes what actually needs correcting.
If the free version of Grammarly works for you, that’s great. But if you ever want to try something different, I’d definitely recommend LanguageTool. It’s been a game-changer for me!
All the best,
Boris
Thank you for your reply, Boris, it's appreciated.
I'm glad that you can see where I'm coming from, great minds think alike! I'm with you big time regarding trying to change writing styles. The unique thing is that we are all individuals and write differently and uniquely, I feel that Grammarly wants to try and take this away, which to a certain extent defeats the idea of writing!
Taetske mentioned about switching to Language Tool, I just had a quick look and it looks like it has potential. I'm guessing the language tool and spell checker are two different items? Although, I am learning Greek, so the translation tools could be useful.
Have a great weekend.
Roy
No problem, Roy.
Spell checker is built in to Language Tool.
I recommend to play with it - the peaky mode is really cool, but I'm not sure it's available on free plan.
Have a smooth weekend,
Boris
Thank you for confirming, Boris, it's appreciated.
I will find out. I don't mind paying providing Language Tool does the job and it sounds like you like it.
A very happy Sunday to you.
Roy
I went to paid version about year ago and it has been ok.
I know one issue is if you upload a very lengthy blog it will only ck one section at a time which is very annoying.
I circumvented that some by utilizing it within the actual document. However it still seems to do similar things. It will say complete and if you close document and reopen it starts finding new errors. So I’m open to looking at other options in future. Positive Vibes
Good morning Mollie,
Thank you for your feedback, it's appreciated.
It's interesting that you find the paid version of Grammarly okay, I would say it was probably better about 18 months ago. Grammarly just seems to try and over correct content. I must admit I haven't really had the issue of Grammarly not being able to correct lengthy content, but that's probably because my blog posts are not really long. I can understand how it could be rather annoying.
The good news is that it seems like there are some other options, which I'm going to look at.
Have a fantastic day.
Roy
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Hi Roy,
Thank you for sharing your experience with Grammarly. I just use the free version and I am happy with that. The free version has a tendency to annoy me. Like you said, it likes to add comma before the word “and” . Sometimes what it suggests to rewrite the sentence to what they presented does not make sense to me. So I just ignore. At times Grammarly also presents a blurred version of a sentence to force me to sign up for full membership. So glad I didn’t fall for that especially after reading your experience with Grammarly. I like to use Word myself, besides it’s spell check, it has the ability to make suggestions as to the reconstruction of a sentence. Curious what Grammarly will suggest, I paste my narrative where I have the Grammarly. Just for the heck of it! 🙂
Cheers,
Evelyn
Good morning Evelyn,
Thank you for sharing your detailed experience with Grammarly, it's appreciated.
I have been using the free version of Grammarly and although it's still annoying, it's much less annoying than the paid version. I'm wondering if it's trying to over help me as it wants me to upgrade to the paid version of Grammarly! It's annoying when it tries to take our uniqueness away, that's not right at all.
It's interesting that you mentioned Microsoft Word, which also has its own spellchecker, Word also corrects our grammar, but Grammarly seems to want to make so many unnecessary corrections!
Have a fantastic day.
Roy
Thank you, Roy. I like the way you put it that it is trying to over help so you will upgrade to paid version. LOL!
Have a great morning! It is probably almost dawn where you live.
Cheers,
Evelyn
It's always a pleasure, Evelyn!
It certainly appears that Grammarly is trying to be helpful! Judging by this thread, there are probably quite a few people who are fairly frustrated by Grammarly. So, they are probably trying to push the upgrade even more.
It's getting that way, Evelyn, I like to be up around 5 AM and sometimes before. I'm guessing that you are in the US, which is generally around six hours behind the UK, I know that very slightly.
Have a great day and thank you for commenting.
Roy
I lived in Aylesbury, Bucks many years ago. The weather did not agree with me. My sinuses were messed up the whole year I was there. Yes, I am in the U.S. in California.
Have a good weekend!
Evelyn
That's amazing, Evelyn, I had no idea! It sounds like you made a good move! The UK is a beautiful country, must admit the weather let's sit down rather. I often mentioned to people that we basically spend most of the year talking about the better weather coming, and it doesn't always come!
This winter has been particularly grey with very little sunshine. I'm hoping to sell my off-line business so that I can work full-time online and I'm also thinking about going to Greece which is a place that I have always liked. Having been married to a Greek, that probably makes a difference too!
Have a great weekend.
Roy