Grammarly alternatives that check your writing on your own Mac
macOS has a spelling and grammar checker built in, it is free, and it never sends your text anywhere. Grammarly Premium costs $12 a month billed yearly and checks on its servers; ProWritingAid is $10 a month; LanguageTool has a free tier. Vocemo rewrites and corrects on your Mac for $15 a month.
- The catch with Grammarly
- Your text is sent to its servers to be checked
- Free and already installed
- The macOS spelling and grammar checker
- Grammarly Premium
- About $12 a month billed yearly, $30 monthly
- Vocemo
- $15 a month, corrects and rewrites on-device
Why do people look for a Grammarly alternative?
Three reasons come up repeatedly, and only one of them is the price.
- The text leaves the machine. Grammarly checks on its servers. For a blog post that is fine. For an unpublished manuscript, a legal filing, a set of accounts or anything covered by a duty of confidence, it is a decision most people make without noticing.
- The price for what you use. Plenty of people want spelling, grammar and the occasional rewrite, and are paying for a tone detector and a plagiarism checker they never open.
- It only speaks English. If you write in German or Spanish, Grammarly is not the tool, whatever the price.
What does macOS already do for free?
More than most people realise, and it is switched on in almost every app already. Check it under System Settings, Keyboard, Text Input, then Edit. Inside individual apps it also sits under Edit, Spelling and Grammar.
It finds typos, doubled words, obvious agreement errors and clear punctuation mistakes. It runs on the machine and costs nothing. What it will not do is rewrite: it never shortens a paragraph, changes a register or untangles a sentence that is grammatical and unreadable. That gap is the whole reason the paid tools exist.
What do the alternatives cost?
Prices verified September 2026, from each company's own pricing page.
| Tool | Checks on your Mac | Price | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS spelling and grammar | Yes | Free | No rewriting, no tone, no suggestions beyond the obvious |
| Vocemo | Yes | $15 a month, $144 a year | macOS 13+, Apple silicon only. No browser extension |
| Grammarly Free | No | Free | Basic corrections only; text still goes to their servers |
| Grammarly Premium | No | About $12 a month billed yearly | Month to month costs considerably more |
| ProWritingAid | No | About $10 a month billed yearly | Aimed at long-form fiction; heavy interface |
| LanguageTool | No by default | Free tier, paid Premium | Checks German and Spanish too, which Grammarly does not |
If you would rather this ran on your own Mac, that is what Vocemo does. Free for 7 days, then $15 a month for 3 Macs.
Download free for MacWhich one is right for which person?
- Start with what macOS gives you. If you mostly need typos caught, you are already covered and can stop reading.
- Take a local tool when you need rewriting as well as correcting, and the draft is something you would not paste into a web form.
- Take LanguageTool if you write in German or Spanish, because Grammarly does not.
- Keep Grammarly if you want the browser extension everywhere, the tone suggestions and the plagiarism check, and your writing is not confidential.
Is a free Grammarly alternative good enough?
For correction, usually yes. The macOS checker and LanguageTool's free tier between them catch most of what Grammarly Free catches. Where the paid tiers earn their money is suggestion quality on long documents and consistency across a whole manuscript.
Be honest with yourself about which you need. A lot of Grammarly subscriptions are paying for rewriting, and rewriting is the part a local language model now does perfectly well without the round trip.
What about privacy specifically?
Grammarly's own documentation describes what it stores and for how long, and by the standards of the category it is reasonably clear. That is not the point. The point is that a check performed on your Mac produces no copy to store, no retention period to read and no processor to add to your records. The question stops existing rather than being answered well.
If you work under a professional duty of confidence, that difference is the entire decision, and it is worth testing rather than assuming: turn the Wi-Fi off and type. If corrections still appear, the check is local.
Questions
What is the best free Grammarly alternative?
For correction alone, the checker already in macOS: System Settings, Keyboard, Text Input, Edit. It is free, it runs on your Mac and it catches typos, doubled words and obvious grammar errors. LanguageTool's free tier adds German and Spanish, which Grammarly does not cover at all.
Does Grammarly send my text to its servers?
Yes, that is how it works rather than an oversight: the checking happens on their infrastructure. Their documentation describes what is stored and for how long. If the text is an unpublished manuscript or covered by a duty of confidence, a checker that runs on your own machine removes the question instead of answering it.
Is there a Grammarly alternative that works offline?
The macOS checker works with no connection at all. Beyond correction, a local language model can rewrite and shorten offline too. Grammarly, ProWritingAid and LanguageTool's default setup all need a connection because the work happens elsewhere.
Does Grammarly work in German or Spanish?
No. Grammarly is an English-only tool. For German or Spanish the usual choice is LanguageTool, which covers both, or a local model that handles the language you write in.
How much does Grammarly actually cost?
Premium is around $12 a month if you pay for a year up front, and considerably more month to month. Check the current figure on their pricing page before deciding, because the annual and monthly prices differ by more than most people expect.
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Every price on this page was read from the vendor's own page on the date shown above. Prices change; if you find one out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Competitor prices in this article were checked in September 2026. Prices change; if you find one out of date, write to us and we will correct it.