Grammarly: Enhance Your Writing with AI

When we first started using Grammarly, it was a quintessential grammar checker. But, trust us, it was magic back then. You could write whatever you want, and Grammarly would point out mistakes—and suggest some meaningful changes.

But now, when we sit to check the latest Grammarly after five years, it is not as simple as it used to be. On the one hand, Grammarly seems to have (almost) perfected its grammar-checking game. On the other hand, there are too many things to consider when you get the Grammarly package.

TheSweetBits’ key takeaways

• Grammarly excels as a versatile writing assistant with accurate grammar checks, intelligent style suggestions, and adaptable AI features.
• Its seamless integration across platforms and robust plagiarism checker make it a valuable tool for writers.
• However, Grammarly’s macOS app could benefit from additional features, and its suggestions could be more contextually aware for optimal performance.
• Despite these minor drawbacks, Grammarly remains a strong choice for writers seeking to improve their writing.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is now a fully-fledged writing assistant that packs multiple modules. Depending on your plan and requirements, you can use one or all of these features. However, overall, Grammarly is now an AI-powered writing tool that can not only detect grammatical errors but also improve/enhance your text for many contexts and purposes.

Core features of Grammarly

• 360-degree grammar, syntax, readability, and flow detection and suggestions
• AI-powered Tone Suggestions that optimize your word choice for contexts
• Full Sentence Rewrites to ensure clarity and brevity for all your writings
• Intelligent style suggestions based on popular guides (APA, MLA, Chicago) and custom styles
• AI-powered Writing Assistant that you can engage in conversations with

In short, Grammarly claims to offer everything you could ever ask from a writing assistant. It feels like having a highly skilled writing assistant by your side. But here are a few questions.

1. How do these features translate to real life?
2. Does Grammarly stay faithful to its promises?
3. How is the experience on a Mac?

Well, we’ve answered all these questions below so that you can make an informed decision.

Using Grammarly for Mac

Before we evaluate the core features of Grammarly, we want to give you a quick overview of how Grammarly works on a Mac. We have been using Grammarly for Mac for almost seven years, and it is the go-to writing assistant on our M2 MacBook Air running macOS Sonoma. Here’s what we feel about Grammarly on Mac.

You can install and use Grammarly on your Mac in three ways:

1. Grammarly Desktop for Mac
2. Grammarly add-on for Word/other apps
3. Grammarly extension for Chrome/Edge/Safari/other browsers

For some reason, we use all these modes. Wondering why?

Ironically enough, Grammarly expects you to write in the same language/dialect across all platforms. It is difficult for a writer who HAS to write in multiple dialects of English, for instance. It is a major hassle when we have to change the language/dialect whenever we change a document.

Unfortunately, this change does not happen instantly. In many cases, we have had to restart. However, we also noticed that the problem occurs mainly on Macs, not Windows devices.

Thus, we have multiple free and paid Grammarly accounts for various apps/add-ons. Fortunately for you, we can quickly tell you the difference between Grammarly Free and Paid.

Installation and Setup

The installation and setup for Grammarly on Mac are pretty straightforward. You can download Grammarly Desktop from the official website and set it up. After installation, Grammarly will ask for some accessibility permissions. These are required to show over apps and offer real-time suggestions.

Once you have provided these permissions, you can start using Grammarly.

User Interface and Usability

The UI and usability of Grammarly Desktop are top-notch. By default, Grammarly works on any app where you open a text field. So, right after you install this app, you can start writing something in Word, and you’ll get instant suggestions.

As for the UI design, you can see a pop-up interface on the bottom-right portion of the window. It will show the current number of suggestions, and you can expand on them as you wish. We often keep the interface closed until we’ve done the writing part.

Once the writing is done, we can entirely focus on the edits. This is where all those powerful AI-powered features come in.

Available Functions and Performance

Most of Grammarly’s advertised features work fine on macOS. However, the Grammarly Desktop app for Mac is not as function-rich as its Windows counterpart. You understand the difference when you use Word on a Windows PC with Grammarly installed.

Of course, essential functions like grammar check, style and tone suggestions, plagiarism check, and AI-powered writing suggestions work across most applications. However, we could not find an option for custom tone control or document-specific settings.

Ironically, these are available when we use a Grammarly browser add-on. Even better, you get better control when you set up Grammarly on a Windows PC.

AI-powered features

Grammarly claims that all of its features are AI-powered and AI-driven.

Grammar and Spelling Checks

Grammarly doesn’t let you down when it comes to basic grammar and spelling checks. As long as you choose the appropriate language and variety (US, UK, Australian, Indian, etc.), you get almost instant suggestions on grammar, syntax, and spelling. You also have the option to correct spelling errors, saving a lot of time automatically.

But, when you write as much as we have, you find a way to navigate grammar rules. In that sense, Grammarly may seem a bit puritan in that it enforces some grammar conventions that don’t make sense anymore. Rest assured, you can really improve your writing clarity and accuracy with Grammarly (Premium or Not).

Style and Tone Suggestions

We could say the same about style and tone suggestions from Grammarly. Then, again, the problem is when Grammarly does not understand the context. In these cases, many suggestions from Grammarly become a little too redundant. We end up dismissing tens of these suggestions in a single document.

But, if you are asking whether Grammarly makes your writing better, the answer is YES. It offers a huge room for improvement. For example, Grammarly suggested changing ‘analyze’ to ‘examine’ in our academic paper, which significantly improved clarity. However, as you continue using Grammarly, you should also develop a sense of discretion. This discretion will help you dismiss the suggestions that need to go.

We have noticed a genre-specific problem when we write for academic purposes. Grammarly tends to suggest words that are meant to make the writing more engaging but end up changing the deeper meanings or arguments.

For beginners, however, the AI-powered tone and style suggestions from Grammarly are great to start with.

Plagiarism Detection

The plagiarism checker utility from Grammarly is minimalistic, but it is quite accurate. We’ve compared the results with those from Quillbot and Turnitin, and they are competitive enough. This feature seems to work fine with most devices and platforms as well.

You can scan the entire document for plagiarism, and Grammarly will highlight the problematic areas in a few seconds. Considering its accuracy, we would say that Grammarly is pretty fast when it comes to plagiarism detection.

AI-Powered Rewriting

We cannot list all the AI-powered rewriting and editing features you can find in Grammarly. Doing so would be impractical. However, here are a few insights on how these features work.

• Complete Rewrites

Complete rewrites with Grammarly are similar to what you would get from ChatGPT or any other AI-based editor. However, you get some great prompt suggestions. For instance, when writing an academic paper, you can ask Grammarly to suggest counterarguments. This feature helps you improve your arguments and the manuscript by accommodating versatile ideas.

• My Voice

When you use Grammarly for some time, it learns about your writing style and creates something it calls as “Your Voice.” These are some characteristics of your writing, and you can ask Grammarly to rewrite anything in your voice. When you select a sentence and launch the Grammarly AI assistant, you can choose between many options.

If you do not find a preset, you can tell Grammarly what to do. Thanks to the powerful LLMs under its hood, Grammarly can make appropriate changes. But this is very unlikely, as you would find quite a lot of prompts within the interface.

In short, the AI-powered features of the Grammarly package are impressive, indeed. Even if you don’t know any better, you can’t go wrong with them.

Performance and accuracy

Here’s a quick look at the performance and accuracy of Grammarly. Since we use Grammarly on a Mac, we could be a little biased. Instead, we have tried to provide an overview of these aspects.

Real-time editing and suggestions

The real-time correction and improvement suggestions from Grammarly are on-point and accurate most of the time. However, we have felt the editors from AI assistants like ChatGPT are more context-aware in many instances. It would be nice to see a more context-aware version of Grammarly. However, this does not ruin the experience by any means.

On the other hand, Grammarly performs well and delivers these suggestions instantly. If you use the built-in editor interface, you can shave a few seconds for every sentence you write. But, in the grand scheme of things, these delays don’t matter much. Instead, you get to enjoy seamless corrections and editing for the various texts/manuscripts.

Comparison with other grammar checkers

Numbers aside, Grammarly has some strong competition in the market. Since we have had some difficulties using Grammarly on Mac, we have tried most other options below.

• LanguageTool is a viable alternative to Grammarly, and it provides fundamental features for not only editing but also improving what you write. However, I have found that LanguageTool is not as accurate as Grammarly in many instances. Using LanguageTool instead of Grammarly cost me a few projects, as a matter of fact.
• Quillbot also has a functional grammar checker and plagiarism checker you can use. However, in addition to being toned-down versions, Quillbot focuses on more academic-centric purposes. It may be overkill for people with diverse needs in content creation and optimization.

We have also tried some apps like Ginger, but they lag behind Grammarly in terms of features and functionality. So, if you need all the premium features (more about that in a bit), Grammarly is a great option out there.

Grammarly on iPad, Android, and iPhone

Here’s a quick look at how Grammarly works on mobile devices, especially iPads, Android, and iPhones.

Grammarly on iPad

You can get Grammarly AI Writing Keyboard for iPad, and it brings some core features like tone detection, spelling corrections, and instant recommendations to polish your writing. It is essentially a third-party keyboard app that you can launch anywhere on your iPad.

In our test, however, Grammarly for iPad needs a lot of work. It functions just right as a keyboard app, but you need more to integrate the app with your iPad experience. We hope Grammarly launches a dedicated writing assistant for iPadOS soon.

Grammarly on iPhone

On iPhone, Grammarly is available as a keyboard app. So, while you get a basic grammar checker and AI rewriting keyboard, it does not materialize as a fully-fledged writing assistant. However, you probably do not need a full assistant on your iPhone.

Instead, we like to use the Grammarly keyboard as a way to ensure that emails don’t have typos or serious grammar errors. For this purpose, Grammarly for iPhone does the job quite well.

Grammarly on Android

Thanks to the customizability of Android, Grammarly functions as a fully-fledged editor, though. Grammarly can work over other apps and can suggest changes based on what you write. These suggestions are great as well as accurate.

It gives you an almost complete Grammarly experience if you have a Premium subscription as well. Overall, the Android version of Grammarly easily outperforms its iPhone/iPad versions any day.

Integration with other apps

Microsoft Word and Google Docs

Grammarly offers integration with Microsoft Word and most other word processors. It just works and gets things right most of the time.

When it comes to Word, you have the added bonus of being able to install the Grammarly add-on, which, in our experience, tends to outperform the general system-wide assistant in various scenarios.

As for Google Docs, you get the best experience when you install the browser extension. You can get it for most web browsers, including Brave, Arc, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Email Clients and Web Browsers

The compatibility of Grammarly with email clients and web browsers is also impressive. On Windows and Mac, you get full coverage as long as you enable the Desktop Assistant. For web browsers, you can find the official extension from respective marketplaces.

Pricing and subscription plans

So, Grammarly is great, we can tell you that. But do you HAVE to pay for Grammarly? Is its free version enough? Well, here are our thoughts.

Free vs. Premium

Grammarly Free is the basic grammar-checking tool from the company. You can easily detect and remove grammar, syntax, and spelling errors with the free version. But that’s where it stops. Of course, you get three or four premium suggestions every day, and those will keep you wanting more. If you ask us, Grammarly Free will correct your writing, but it won’t help you polish it.

You also miss out on AI-powered features, such as rewriting, plagiarism checker, and style guide support.

Grammarly Premium, on the other hand, is the truly complete package. You get all the features Grammarly advertises, including the AI-powered writing assistant. Unlike its competitors, Grammarly does not limit the amount of text you can check for plagiarism. You get unlimited AI credits as well. Overall, for what you pay, the premium package from Grammarly seems powerful and rich enough. So, if you were thinking of getting an AI writing assistant, Grammarly Premium is an easy choice.

Grammarly Premium costs $12 per month when purchased annually. You get student/other discounts while upgrading. So, even though the yearly amount comes down to $144, you can get a full year of Grammarly Premium for less than $100.

Is it worth the cost?

As we use Grammarly Free and Premium simultaneously, we can tell you that Grammarly Premium is definitely worth the extra cost. We find it convenient that we can worry less about errors and wrong punctuation, even if we spend close to $100 a year.

If you are a student or an employee, you might want to check whether your school/company has subscribed to Grammarly School or Enterprise.

Privacy and data security

In case you are wondering, Grammarly is proactive in terms of privacy-centric practices. The company ensures that your data is safe from prying eyes, including theirs. We have also found some concrete regulations on how Grammarly uses AI within its service offerings. So, this is something you can stay worry-free about.

Final words

Grammarly has become a go-to tool for anyone looking to polish their writing, whether you’re a student, professional writer, or just someone wanting to improve everyday communication. Powered by advanced AI, it not only checks grammar and spelling but also suggests ways to enhance clarity, conciseness, and overall tone.

More details, visit Grammarly official website.