Hemingway App vs Grammarly - which one should you choose?

cartoon image of students sitting on front of a grand building - Hemingway App vs Grammarly
Credit: Grammarly


cartoon image of students sitting on front of a grand building - Hemingway App vs Grammarly
Credit: Grammarly

Today is the titanic battle between two heavyweights: Hemingway App vs Grammarly. In the tussle of proofreading and copy-editing software, which one comes out on top?

Both offer similar features and services, but there are a few crucial differences between the two, which may make one a more suitable choice for you than the other. Luckily, in our time we have the option of choosing one, or the other, or maybe even both.

After reading this article, you’ll know what to pick.

Hemingway App vs Grammarly

It's worth saying straight off that both of these tools can be a valuable addition for any writer who wants to produce cleaner, tighter copy, with fewer errors.

Grammarly, as the name suggests, is perhaps a little more focused on spelling and grammatical accuracy. Hemingway, in contrast, shines when you want to write concise copy. That's the quick version.

But there's plenty more to cover, so let's turn the page and find out what's going on.

Hemingway App vs Grammarly: Price

We'll start with the obvious - price. The good news here is that both tools offer a free version, albeit in both cases you don't get access to all of their features, which we'll look at in more detail shortly.

Grammarly's premium offering will cost you £10/$12 a month, with savings if you pay for a quarterly or annual subscription. This then unlocks a host of additional tools to help improve your writing.

Hemingway is also free, which is very much how the creators intended it. But if you want the desktop version of the app, then you can pay a one-off $19.99 fee.

In cold, hard cash terms then, there is clearly only one winner. But this is where we need to examine the additional features of each app, so you can understand exactly what you're getting.

Features

Now it's time to consider the features of the Hemingway App vs Grammarly. This time, we'll start with Hemingway. As an app, its primary purpose is to focus on readability. It's relatively basic, offering a readability score and flagging issues such as overly complex sentence structure, passive voice, and adverbs.

The free version is available as a web browser, compatible with Chrome, Safari and Firefox. This version cannot be used in conjunction with an alternative word processing tool, such as Word or Google Docs.

If you pay for the premium version, then you can use Hemingway with sites such as WordPress, as well as enjoy the option to export documents as PDF and Word files.

Grammarly offers a much more comprehensive suite of supporting features, especially if you are prepared to pay for it. The free version will analyse your writing, flag spelling errors, and give you scores in categories such as clarity, correctness and engagement. It will also give you an overall reading score. There is a plug-in that you can use alongside other programs such as Pages or Word, although this is less comprehensive than writing your document in the app itself.

The premium version will give you all this, and much, much more. Most pertinently, it will actually make suggestions on how you can rewrite your work to improve its clarity, tone, and style.

There's also a plagiarism checker, as well as being able to add citations to text that may be missing. This can be invaluable if you are writing, for example, an academic piece, where plagiarism (even by accident) is a cardinal sin.

Hemingway App vs Grammarly: Which one should you use?

So which of Hemingway App vs Grammarly should you use? Both tools can be invaluable if you are seeking to improve your writing. And actually, for many people, there's no need to choose between the two. They can be used to complement one another.

Grammarly is going to be great for improving your sentence structure and grammar, and eradicating spelling errors. The paid version will also help you to improve your clarity and style.

Hemingway is really useful if you are already an experienced writer, but need to write more economically or improve readability. It focuses less on spelling and grammar, which makes it immediately obvious how you could combine it with using Grammarly to get the best possible outcome.

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