# QuillBot Alternatives 2027: 13 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/quillbot/
Prices checked: 2026-11-13 (Zekai Price Ledger)

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 | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuillBot (the tool being replaced) | — | $8.33/mo billed yearly | Paraphrases up to 125 words per use, 2 modes | — | — | 2026-11-11 | [pricing](https://quillbot.com/premium) |
| Grammarly | Free plan + paid | $12/mo | 100 AI prompts per month | — | Grammar, tone and full-sentence rewrites | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.grammarly.com) [pricing](https://www.grammarly.com/plans) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/grammarly/) |
| Wordtune | Free plan + paid | $4.89/mo billed yearly | 10 rewrites and AI suggestions a day | — | Sentence rewrites at a low price | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.wordtune.com) [pricing](https://www.wordtune.com/plans) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/wordtune/) |
| ProWritingAid | Free plan + paid | $10/mo billed yearly | 500 words per report, 10 rephrases a day | — | In-depth style and line editing reports | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://prowritingaid.com) [pricing](https://prowritingaid.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/prowritingaid/) |
| Trinka AI | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | 5,000 words a month; Standard paraphraser mode only | — | Academic and technical writing | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.trinka.ai) [pricing](https://www.trinka.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/trinka-ai/) |
| Paperpal | Free | Free plan; paid price not published |  | — | Academic manuscripts and journal checks | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://paperpal.com) [pricing](https://paperpal.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/paperpal/) |
| DeepL Write | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | 50,000 characters per month on the free DeepL plan | — | Rewriting with translation in one tool | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.deepl.com) [pricing](https://www.deepl.com/en/pro) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/deepl/) |
| Hemingway Editor | Free | Free plan; paid price not published |  | — | Readability checks while you edit | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://hemingwayapp.com) [pricing](https://hemingwayapp.com) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/hemingway-editor/) |
| LanguageTool | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | LGPL-2.1 | Self-hosted grammar and style checking | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://languagetool.org) [pricing](https://languagetool.org/premium) [code](https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/languagetool/) |
| Writing Tools | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | GPL-3.0 | System-wide proofread and rewrite hotkeys | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools) [code](https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/writing-tools/) |
| GrammarLLM | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Offline grammar checking with a local model | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://github.com/whiteh4cker-tr/grammar-llm) [code](https://github.com/whiteh4cker-tr/grammar-llm) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/grammarllm/) |
| Harper | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Offline English checking inside editors | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://github.com/Automattic/harper) [code](https://github.com/Automattic/harper) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/harper/) |
| Vale | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Style-guide checks for documentation teams | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://vale.sh) [code](https://github.com/vale-cli/vale) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vale/) |
| proselint | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | BSD-3-Clause | Terminal checks for clichés and weak phrasing | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://github.com/amperser/proselint) [code](https://github.com/amperser/proselint) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/proselint/) |

## How each alternative compares with QuillBot

- **Grammarly** (Free plan + paid, $12/mo, checked 2026-11-11): 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. Switch 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.
- **Wordtune** (Free plan + paid, $4.89/mo billed yearly, checked 2026-11-11): 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. Switch if you rewrite sentences occasionally and want a paid plan priced below QuillBot Premium. Stay with QuillBot if you paraphrase long passages and want unlimited modes plus a plagiarism check.
- **ProWritingAid** (Free plan + paid, $10/mo billed yearly, checked 2026-11-11): ProWritingAid offers a $399 lifetime Premium licence alongside $10 a month billed yearly, and its free plan is limited to 10 rephrases a day. Switch if you edit long manuscripts and want style reports or a one-time lifetime licence. Stay with QuillBot if you want quick paraphrasing in nine modes without running full editing reports.
- **Trinka AI** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): 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. Switch if you write academic or technical papers and want a monthly word allowance at no cost. Stay with QuillBot if you want a free paraphraser capped by words per use rather than by a monthly quota.
- **Paperpal** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Paperpal's paid plans add plagiarism detection, citation management, PDF chat and journal submission checks, which are aimed at researchers preparing papers. Switch if you are preparing a journal submission and want a submission check and PDF chat. Stay with QuillBot if you want a general paraphraser and summariser outside academic publishing.
- **DeepL Write** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): 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. Switch if you also translate documents and want rewriting from the same vendor, priced per user. Stay with QuillBot if you want one paraphraser with synonym sliders and a built-in summariser.
- **Hemingway Editor** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): 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. Switch if you want readability highlighting and a two-week trial before paying anything. Stay with QuillBot if you need automatic paraphrasing of whole passages rather than highlighted readability issues.
- **LanguageTool** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want to host the grammar checker yourself and keep text on your own server. Stay with QuillBot if you want AI paraphrasing in many modes without maintaining a Java server.
- **Writing Tools** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want rewrite and proofread actions on selected text in every app using your own model. Stay with QuillBot if you prefer a hosted paraphraser with no API keys or local models to set up.
- **GrammarLLM** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you need grammar checks fully offline and want a quality score and PDF report. Stay with QuillBot if you need paraphrasing and summaries rather than sentence-level grammar correction only.
- **Harper** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want quick offline grammar and spelling checks in your editor with no paraphrasing credits. Stay with QuillBot if you rely on QuillBot's paraphrasing modes, which a rule-based checker does not offer.
- **Vale** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want your writing checked against a fixed style guide instead of being reworded. Stay with QuillBot if you want sentences paraphrased in different modes rather than flagged against rules.
- **proselint** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): 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. Switch if you want a free command-line check for weak or clichéd phrasing in drafts. Stay with QuillBot if you need a paraphraser or summariser that rewrites passages for you.

## Open-source options in detail

- **LanguageTool** (https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool): Licence: LGPL-2.1; 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.; Last commit: 2026-11-13; GitHub stars: 15,300 (2026-11-13)
- **Writing Tools** (https://github.com/theJayTea/WritingTools): Licence: GPL-3.0; 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.; Last commit: 2026-08-19; Last release: 2026-05-10; GitHub stars: 2,500 (2026-11-13)
- **GrammarLLM** (https://github.com/whiteh4cker-tr/grammar-llm): Licence: MIT; 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.; Last commit: 2026-08-27; Last release: 2026-08-14; GitHub stars: 115 (2026-11-13)
- **Harper** (https://github.com/Automattic/harper): Licence: Apache-2.0; 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.; Last commit: 2026-11-13; Last release: 2026-11-13; GitHub stars: 17,700 (2026-11-13)
- **Vale** (https://github.com/vale-cli/vale): Licence: MIT; 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.; Last commit: 2026-11-12; Last release: 2026-11-12; GitHub stars: 6,400 (2026-11-13)
- **proselint** (https://github.com/amperser/proselint): Licence: BSD-3-Clause; 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.; Last commit: 2026-06-22; Last release: 2025-11-14; GitHub stars: 4,600 (2026-11-13)

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to QuillBot in 2027?
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).

### Is there a free version of QuillBot?
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.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to QuillBot?
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.

### What is cheaper than QuillBot?
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.

### How much do QuillBot alternatives cost for a team of 5?
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.

### Which is better, Grammarly or QuillBot?
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.

### Why are people leaving QuillBot?
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.

## Related on Zekai

- [Grammarly alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/grammarly/)
- [Wordtune alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/wordtune/)
- [Paperpal alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/paperpal/)
- [DeepL Write alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/deepl/)
- [HyperWrite alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/hyperwrite/)
- [AI for Marketing & Content Creation](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-marketing-content-creation-automation/)

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Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/quillbot/