{ "title": "QuillBot Alternatives 2027: 13 Paid, Free & Open-Source", "url": "https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/quillbot/", "summary": "The best QuillBot alternatives in 2027 are Grammarly (best overall, $12/mo), Trinka AI (best free plan: 5,000 words a month) and LanguageTool (best open source, LGPL-2.1). QuillBot itself starts at $8.33/mo billed yearly. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 10 more are compared below, including 5 with a free plan and 5 open source.", "tool": { "name": "QuillBot", "starting_price": "$8.33/mo billed yearly", "free_plan": "Paraphrases up to 125 words per use, 2 modes", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://quillbot.com/premium" }, "task": "AI writing assistant", "prices_checked": "2026-11-13", "date_modified": "2026-11-13", "alternatives": [ { "name": "Grammarly", "type": "Free plan + paid", "starting_price": "$12/mo", "free_plan_limit": "100 AI prompts per month", "best_for": "Grammar, tone and full-sentence rewrites", "difference": "Grammarly's free plan includes tone detection and 100 AI prompts a month, while full-sentence rewrites with a click sit in Pro; QuillBot's free paraphraser caps each use at 125 words.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.grammarly.com/plans", "website": "https://www.grammarly.com", "zekai_score": 9.2, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/grammarly/" }, { "name": "Wordtune", "type": "Free plan + paid", "starting_price": "$4.89/mo billed yearly", "free_plan_limit": "10 rewrites and AI suggestions a day", "best_for": "Sentence rewrites at a low price", "difference": "Wordtune's Advanced plan is $4.89 a month billed yearly for 30 rewrites a day, and Unlimited is $6.99; its free plan allows 10 rewrites daily.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.wordtune.com/plans", "website": "https://www.wordtune.com", "zekai_score": 6.8, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/wordtune/" }, { "name": "ProWritingAid", "type": "Free plan + paid", "starting_price": "$10/mo billed yearly", "free_plan_limit": "500 words per report, 10 rephrases a day", "best_for": "In-depth style and line editing reports", "difference": "ProWritingAid offers a $399 lifetime Premium licence alongside $10 a month billed yearly, and its free plan is limited to 10 rephrases a day.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://prowritingaid.com/pricing", "website": "https://prowritingaid.com", "zekai_score": 8.6, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/prowritingaid/" }, { "name": "Trinka AI", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "Free plan; paid price not published", "free_plan_limit": "5,000 words a month; Standard paraphraser mode only", "best_for": "Academic and technical writing", "difference": "Trinka's free Basic plan gives 5,000 words of writing assistance a month, the Standard paraphraser mode only, and 1 credit per 5,000 words for its AI detector.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.trinka.ai/pricing", "website": "https://www.trinka.ai", "zekai_score": 8.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/trinka-ai/" }, { "name": "Paperpal", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "Free plan; paid price not published", "best_for": "Academic manuscripts and journal checks", "difference": "Paperpal's paid plans add plagiarism detection, citation management, PDF chat and journal submission checks, which are aimed at researchers preparing papers.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://paperpal.com/pricing", "website": "https://paperpal.com", "zekai_score": 8.9, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/paperpal/" }, { "name": "DeepL Write", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "Free plan; paid price not published", "free_plan_limit": "50,000 characters per month on the free DeepL plan", "best_for": "Rewriting with translation in one tool", "difference": "DeepL Write Pro is a €6.99 per user monthly add-on, billed yearly with VAT included, and the free DeepL plan allows 50,000 characters a month.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://www.deepl.com/en/pro", "website": "https://www.deepl.com", "zekai_score": 9.4, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/deepl/" }, { "name": "Hemingway Editor", "type": "Free", "starting_price": "Free plan; paid price not published", "best_for": "Readability checks while you edit", "difference": "Hemingway Editor Plus fixes highlighted issues, checks grammar and adjusts tone, with a 2-week trial that needs no credit card; the home page shows no prices.", "price_checked": "2026-11-11", "pricing_url": "https://hemingwayapp.com", "website": "https://hemingwayapp.com", "zekai_score": 8, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/hemingway-editor/" }, { "name": "LanguageTool", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "LGPL-2.1", "best_for": "Self-hosted grammar and style checking", "difference": "LanguageTool's core is LGPL-2.1 and can be run as your own server; its hosted free plan caps text at 2,000 characters per field and 3 AI rephrasings daily.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "pricing_url": "https://languagetool.org/premium", "website": "https://languagetool.org", "repository": "https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/languagetool/", "commercial_use": "Yes (LGPL-2.1 core); share changes to the library itself.", "runs_on": "Java 17 and Maven to build; optional n-gram data is about 16 GB.", "setup": "moderate: Build from source or use a community Docker image.", "github_stars": 15300, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-13", "zekai_score": 8.5, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/languagetool/" }, { "name": "Writing Tools", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "GPL-3.0", "best_for": "System-wide proofread and rewrite hotkeys", "difference": "Writing Tools applies proofreading, rewriting and tone changes to selected text in any app, using your own API key or a local model, and keeps the key stored locally.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools", "repository": "https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/writing-tools/", "commercial_use": "Yes; GPL-3.0 means sharing source if you distribute changes.", "runs_on": "Windows, macOS 14+ or Linux; local Llama 3.1 8B needs about 8 GB RAM.", "setup": "moderate: Needs a free Gemini API key or a local Ollama model.", "github_stars": 2500, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-08-19", "last_release": "2026-05-10", "zekai_score": 7, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/writing-tools/" }, { "name": "GrammarLLM", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "MIT", "best_for": "Offline grammar checking with a local model", "difference": "GrammarLLM checks grammar sentence by sentence with a local model, scores writing from 0 to 100 and exports a PDF report, with no network or API keys.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/whiteh4cker-tr/grammar-llm", "repository": "https://github.com/whiteh4cker-tr/grammar-llm", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/grammarllm/", "commercial_use": "Yes (MIT); check the licence of the downloaded GRMR model.", "runs_on": "Node.js 20+; 2-4 GB model download; GPU optional, CPU fallback.", "setup": "moderate: Model downloads on first launch; CUDA, Metal or Vulkan optional.", "github_stars": 115, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-08-27", "last_release": "2026-08-14", "zekai_score": 6.6, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/grammarllm/" }, { "name": "Harper", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "Apache-2.0", "best_for": "Offline English checking inside editors", "difference": "English-only, Apache-2.0 checker from Automattic that runs offline and lints a document in milliseconds, per its README; it corrects grammar and spelling and has no paraphrasing modes.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/Automattic/harper", "repository": "https://github.com/Automattic/harper", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/harper/", "commercial_use": "Yes (Apache-2.0).", "runs_on": "Ordinary computer; Rust binary, WebAssembly build or editor plugin.", "setup": "easy: Install the editor plugin or language server; no account.", "github_stars": 17700, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-13", "last_release": "2026-11-13", "zekai_score": 8.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/harper/" }, { "name": "Vale", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "MIT", "best_for": "Style-guide checks for documentation teams", "difference": "Command-line prose linter that enforces a style guide you choose (Microsoft, Google, Red Hat packages or your own YAML rules) on Markdown, AsciiDoc and HTML, offline; it does not rewrite text.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://vale.sh", "repository": "https://github.com/vale-cli/vale", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vale/", "commercial_use": "Yes (MIT).", "runs_on": "Single binary for macOS, Windows and Linux; works offline, no account.", "setup": "moderate: Install one binary, then write a config and sync style packages.", "github_stars": 6400, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-11-12", "last_release": "2026-11-12", "zekai_score": 7.5, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vale/" }, { "name": "proselint", "type": "Open source", "starting_price": "Free (self-hosted)", "free_plan_limit": "No limit (self-hosted)", "licence": "BSD-3-Clause", "best_for": "Terminal checks for clichés and weak phrasing", "difference": "Python linter for English prose that flags usage problems drawn from writers' style advice; it installs with pip, has a pre-commit hook, and reports issues without rewriting your text.", "price_checked": "2026-11-13", "website": "https://github.com/amperser/proselint", "repository": "https://github.com/amperser/proselint", "zekai_open_source_page": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/proselint/", "commercial_use": "Yes (BSD-3-Clause).", "runs_on": "Any machine with Python; pip install, runs offline.", "setup": "easy: pip install proselint, then run it on a file.", "github_stars": 4600, "stars_checked": "2026-11-13", "last_commit": "2026-06-22", "last_release": "2025-11-14", "zekai_score": 7.3, "zekai_review": "https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/proselint/" } ], "faq": [ { "q": "What is the best alternative to QuillBot in 2027?", "a": "Grammarly is the best overall QuillBot alternative on this page ($12/mo). For no cost, Trinka AI has a free plan (5,000 words a month; Standard paraphraser mode only). To self-host, LanguageTool is open source (LGPL-2.1)." }, { "q": "Is there a free version of QuillBot?", "a": "Yes. QuillBot has a free plan: Paraphrases up to 125 words per use, 2 modes. Paid plans start at $8.33/mo billed yearly, checked on 11 Nov 2026." }, { "q": "Is there a 100% free alternative to QuillBot?", "a": "Yes. LanguageTool, Writing Tools, GrammarLLM, Harper, Vale, proselint are open source and free to self-host. Grammarly, Wordtune, ProWritingAid, Trinka AI, Paperpal, DeepL Write, Hemingway Editor have a free plan with limits, shown in the table." }, { "q": "What is cheaper than QuillBot?", "a": "Wordtune starts at $4.89/mo billed yearly, against $8.33/mo billed yearly for QuillBot, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 11 Nov 2026." }, { "q": "How much do QuillBot alternatives cost for a team of 5?", "a": "If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 13 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Wordtune $24.45/mo, ProWritingAid $50/mo, Grammarly $60/mo, against QuillBot $41.65/mo for QuillBot. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size." }, { "q": "Which is better, Grammarly or QuillBot?", "a": "Grammarly's free plan includes tone detection and 100 AI prompts a month, while full-sentence rewrites with a click sit in Pro; QuillBot's free paraphraser caps each use at 125 words. Choose Grammarly if you want grammar, tone feedback and AI prompts working across the apps where you write. Stay with QuillBot if you mainly need a paraphraser with nine modes and 23 languages on Premium." }, { "q": "Why are people leaving QuillBot?", "a": "The documented reasons are: QuillBot's free plan limits paraphrasing to 125 words per use in two modes; unlimited modes, plagiarism checks and citations require Premium at $8.33 a month billed annually (11 Nov 2026). Each is sourced in the section above." } ], "publisher": "Zekai (zekaiwork.com) — independently reviewed; prices read on vendor pages on the dates shown.", "licence": "Free to quote with a link to https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/quillbot/. Bulk copying or republishing the dataset is not permitted." }