ProWritingAid and Grammarly Premium are considered to be the 2 top editing software’s for authors. But which one is better? This blog post helps you find out.
While all writing software typically come with some form of editing functionality, these are typically rudimentary and more geared towards catching spelling and obvious grammatical errors. ProWritingAid & Grammarly Premium are the two most recommended editing softwares used by authors, that offer a more detailed grammatical check and other checks on writing quality as compared to the more basic features of standard writing software.
While editing software should not be considered as a replacement for a professional editor, they help improve the quality of your writing (by highlighting errors as you type them) and can reduce the amount of time and work that needs to be spent by your professional editor (which can help reduce your cost).
ProWritingAid
Most professional authors consider ProWritingAid to be the best editing tool in the market. While Grammarly Premium is clearly ahead in terms of marketing & slickness, ProWritingAid is considered to be the most comprehensive tool in terms of the number of areas that it provides suggestions on.
The software does indeed go well beyond the traditional spell check and grammar suggestions, to incorporate a large number of checks that can help improve the quality of your writing.
ProWritingAid analyzes your writing and presents its findings in over 20 different reports. The number of checks are well more than any other editing software. A few examples of the many quality writing checks offered by ProWritingAid including your writing style, overused words, the use of cliches, sentence & paragraph length checks, alliteration, the use of pronouns, transitions, diction, plagiarism and more.
ProWritingAid works on both Mac and Windows, and has a large number of integrations to allow you to check your work on your most popular writing software including Word, Google Docs, Open Office, Scrivener and on Google Chrome.
The one area that ProWritingAid lags behind is in terms of the slickness of the software and the ease of use. While it is not that ProWritingAid is hard to use, it is just that it does feel a bit dated compared to using Grammarly.
The tutorial below provides you a quick snapshot of how the tool works.
While ProWritingAid has a free pricing tier, the software truly comes onto it’s own in the premium version. This is where you get the extensive writing checks that actually help you become a better writer. ProWritingAid is available in annual, 2-year, 3-year and lifetime plans.
Grammarly Premium
Grammarly is the new player on the block, having witnessed tremendous growth in use over the past few years. Grammarly stands out in terms of the slickness of using the software (modern minimalist feel) and its ease of use.
Similar to ProWritingAid, Grammarly offers a free version, but it is the premium option that adds the most value to authors. With the premium version, you get additional checks on the free features and additional functionality including deeper grammar checks, punctuation, sentence structure, style, tone and plagiarism checks.
Grammarly works on both Mac and Windows and has a number of integrations including Word (only Windows version), Google Docs (beta) and Google Chrome amongst others. Scrivener integration is not currently available.
The tutorial below gives you a quick snapshot of how Grammarly Premium works
Grammarly Premium is available in monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions.
The winner – ProWritingAid
Having used the premium versions of both ProWritingAid and Grammarly, we believe that ProWritingAid emerges as a clear winner. We provide a summary of our views below:
- Features (ProWritingAid): ProWritingAid clearly offers many more checks than Grammarly Premium, with a number of these going well beyond grammar checks and actually helping improve the quality of your writing.
- Feel of the Software (Grammarly): Grammarly is clearly easier and more intuitive to use, as compared to ProWritingAid that does not feel as modern
- Pricing (ProWritingAid): Not only is ProWritingAid substantially cheaper, but it also offers a lifetime license can lead to considerable savings over subscription packages over the longer-term
- Integrations (ProWritingAid): ProWritingAid offers more integrations, integrates with Scrivener, has a dull launched Google Docs integration and also works on Word for Mac.
The following video provides a further comparison between the two softwares
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