AllTools vs Grammarly — Free Private Writing Alternative

Grammarly vs AllTools: AI Grammar Checker or Private Text Toolkit?

Grammarly is the world’s most popular writing assistant. Over 30 million people use it daily to check grammar, spelling, tone, and clarity. Its browser extension sits in your email, Google Docs, social media, and almost everywhere you type. It’s genuinely good at catching errors.

But Grammarly works by sending every word you type to its servers. Every email, every document, every private message — it all flows through Grammarly’s infrastructure for analysis. For grammar checking, that’s a necessary trade-off: AI models that catch nuanced writing errors need server-side processing power.

AllTools takes a fundamentally different approach. It doesn’t offer AI grammar checking — that’s worth stating upfront. What it does offer is a comprehensive set of text analysis tools that run entirely in your browser: word counting, readability scoring, keyword density analysis, text comparison, case conversion, and more. Your text never leaves your device.

This comparison is honest about the trade-offs. They’re different tools for different needs.

Quick Summary

Choose Grammarly if: You need AI-powered grammar, spelling, and tone checking. You write extensively in English and want real-time error correction. You’re comfortable sending your text to Grammarly’s servers.

Choose AllTools if: You need text analysis tools (word count, readability, keyword density) with complete privacy. You don’t need grammar checking, or you use a separate grammar tool. You want free tools without a subscription.

Use both: Grammarly for grammar correction, AllTools for word count, readability analysis, and the 560+ other tools Grammarly doesn’t offer.

Feature Comparison

Where Grammarly Wins

Let’s be direct: Grammarly is better at grammar checking than AllTools because AllTools doesn’t do grammar checking at all. Here’s what Grammarly does well:

AI grammar and spelling

Grammarly’s AI catches errors that spell-checkers miss: subject-verb agreement, comma splices, dangling modifiers, mixed-up homophones (their/there/they’re), and inconsistent tense. It doesn’t just flag errors — it explains why something is wrong and suggests corrections. For non-native English speakers, this is transformative.

Tone and clarity

Grammarly Premium analyzes the tone of your writing (formal, friendly, confident, diplomatic) and suggests adjustments. It also flags wordy sentences, passive voice overuse, and unclear phrasing. These are genuinely helpful for professional communication.

Browser extension integration

Grammarly’s extension works inside Gmail, Google Docs, LinkedIn, Twitter, Slack, and most text fields on the web. Corrections appear inline as you type — no copy-pasting to a separate tool. This seamless integration is Grammarly’s biggest UX advantage.

Plagiarism detection

Grammarly Premium checks your text against a database of web pages and academic papers to flag potential plagiarism. For students and content creators, this provides peace of mind before submitting work.

GrammarlyGO (AI writing)

Grammarly’s AI can generate, rewrite, and expand text based on prompts. While this overlaps with other AI writing tools, having it integrated into the same writing assistant is convenient.

Where AllTools Wins

Complete text privacy

This is the fundamental difference. When you type into Grammarly, your text is sent to their servers for analysis. Grammarly’s privacy policy states they process your text to provide the service and may use anonymized data for product improvement.

For many use cases, this is fine. But for some, it’s not:

• Legal documents — Attorneys drafting confidential contracts or legal memos may violate client confidentiality by routing text through a third-party service
• Medical records — Healthcare professionals handling patient information face HIPAA compliance concerns
• Financial data — Analysts working with material non-public information can’t send it to external services
• NDAs and trade secrets — Employees at companies with strict data handling policies may be prohibited from using Grammarly
• Personal privacy — Some people simply don’t want a company reading their emails, messages, and documents

AllTools processes text entirely in your browser. The Word Counter, Readability Score, and every other text tool runs in JavaScript on your device. There’s no server, no account, no data to worry about.

Free forever — no subscription tiers

Grammarly’s free tier offers basic grammar and spelling. Readability scores, tone detection, plagiarism checking, and advanced suggestions require Premium at $12-30/month. Over a year, that’s $144-360.

Every AllTools text tool is free with no restrictions. Readability scoring, keyword density analysis, word counting, text comparison — all free, all the time. There’s no “Premium” tier hiding the useful features.

Text analysis tools Grammarly doesn’t offer

AllTools provides text analysis capabilities that fall outside Grammarly’s scope:

• Keyword Density Analyzer — Essential for SEO content writers. Shows how frequently target keywords appear in your text, helping you optimize for search without overstuffing.
• Text Diff Viewer — Compare two versions of text side by side with highlighted differences. Useful for reviewing edits, comparing drafts, and tracking changes.
• Case Converter — Convert text between UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, sentence case, and more. Useful for formatting headings, database entries, and standardizing text.
• Text Trimmer — Remove extra whitespace, line breaks, and formatting artifacts. Clean up text pasted from PDFs, websites, or emails.

560+ tools beyond text

Grammarly is a writing tool. AllTools is a tools platform. After checking your word count, you might need to:

• Compress an image for your blog post
• Generate a PDF from your finished document
• Create a QR code for the published article
• Build an invoice for the writing project
• Encrypt a sensitive file before sharing

All of these are on AllTools. Grammarly handles none of them.

The Bottom Line

Use Grammarly when:

• You need AI grammar and spelling correction
• You write extensively in English and want real-time suggestions
• Tone and clarity analysis would improve your professional communication
• You need plagiarism detection for academic or publishing work
• Your content isn’t confidential (or your organization approves Grammarly)

Use AllTools when:

• You need word count, readability scores, or keyword density for SEO
• Privacy is non-negotiable — legal, medical, financial, or personal sensitivity
• You want free text tools without a subscription
• You need text comparison, case conversion, or text cleanup
• You need tools beyond writing — PDF, image, video, security, math

The practical combo

Many writers and content creators use both:

1. Write in Google Docs or your preferred editor
2. Grammar check with Grammarly’s browser extension
3. Analyze with AllTools — check word count against target, verify readability score for the audience, analyze keyword density for SEO
4. Process with AllTools — compress images for the article, generate a PDF version, create social media assets

They complement each other because they serve different functions.

Try These AllTools Text Tools

All free, all private, all running in your browser:

• Word Counter — Words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, reading time
• Readability Score — Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, and other readability metrics
• Character Counter — Detailed character breakdown with platform limit reference
• Keyword Density Analyzer — Keyword frequency and density percentages for SEO
• Text Diff Viewer — Side-by-side comparison with highlighted changes
• Case Converter — UPPER, lower, Title, Sentence, and more
• Text Trimmer — Remove extra whitespace and formatting artifacts
• Reading Time Estimator — Calculate reading time at configurable WPM

Explore the full Text tools category for all available tools.