aiCat vs Grammarly
Grammarly: free tier; paid plans start from about $12/month on an annual term and run higher month-to-month. aiCat: free to start, Premium starts from $6/month. Neither is a superset of the other, and this page says which is which.
Grammarly has spent more than a decade on one question — is this English sentence correct, clear and in the right register — and it answers that question better than aiCat does. aiCat is answering a different one: what do you want to do with the text under your cursor, right now, in whatever application it happens to be in.
What follows is written to be usable by somebody who ends up choosing Grammarly. Prices are floors — the cheapest tier each product is honestly available at — checked in August 2026 and worth re-checking on the vendor's own page before you decide on price alone.
The two products, axis by axis
| aiCat | Grammarly | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built to do | One key over any selected text, deciding for itself whether that means proof-read, translate, explain or answer | Make English writing correct, clear and consistently toned |
| Where it runs | macOS, Windows and Linux, in every application, at OS level | Browser extension, desktop apps, Office and Google Docs add-ins |
| Languages | Whatever the model speaks, including RTL scripts and text that changes language halfway | English-first; other languages are supported unevenly by surface |
| Depth on English style | Model-level rewriting with the mistakes listed one by one | Deeper — decades of style rules, plus enforceable house guides |
| Facts and claims | Claim-by-claim proof-check with a status and, where one exists, a source | Not what it is for |
| Voice | Dictation into any field and read-aloud on the same hotkeys | Neither |
| Suggestion style | You ask, by pressing a key on a selection | It offers, underlining as you type |
| Price floor | Free with 10 aiCatCoins a month; Premium starts from $6/month | Free tier with basic corrections; paid starts from about $12/month |
What aiCat does that Grammarly does not attempt
- Runs at the operating-system level, so a Java IDE, a terminal and a PDF are the same to it as a Google Doc
- Translation, fact-checking, explanation, dictation and read-aloud sit on the same keys as the proof-read
- Starts free and Premium starts from $6/month, with coins you can buy outright instead of subscribing
- Any language the underlying model speaks, right-to-left scripts rendered properly
What Grammarly does better, and it is not a short list
- A far longer track record on English style, and it shows on long-form documents
- A document-level editing interface, rather than a result window over a selection
- Style guides and brand tones an organisation can enforce
- Suggestions that appear as you type, without pressing anything
Which one, by what you actually do
You write long English documents for a living
Grammarly. The document-level interface and the style rules are the product, and aiCat has no answer to them.
Your company enforces a house style
Grammarly. Shared style guides and brand tones are an organisational feature aiCat does not have.
You write in two or more languages every week
aiCat. Grammarly is English-first by design; aiCat treats a Hebrew message and an English one the same way.
Most of your text is not in a browser
aiCat. IDEs, terminals, native mail clients and PDF viewers are where extension-based coverage runs out.
You want fact-checking, not only grammar
aiCat. A confident, well-punctuated, factually wrong sentence passes a grammar checker every time.
You use it twice a week
aiCat, on coins. Neither product's subscription is good value at that rate, and coins that never expire are the only shape that is.
Hands-on: a month with both open
One person's account of using both. It is an opinion, it is not a benchmark, and it is here because the rest of this page is a table.
Running both for a month, the split settled itself without any decision being made. Grammarly kept the long English drafts — its underlines are there before you ask, which is the whole advantage of an always-on checker, and its rewrites of a clumsy paragraph were consistently the better ones. What it never touched was the half of the day spent in a JetBrains IDE, a terminal and a Russian-language chat, because there is no extension there to touch it with. That half is where the hotkey earned its place: the same two keys proof-read a commit message, translated a support thread and read a spec aloud while I made coffee. The honest summary is that they are not competing for the same hour.
Stay on Grammarly if English prose is the job
If your working day is English prose in Google Docs, Word and Gmail, and what you want is a second pair of eyes on style, Grammarly is the better tool and this page is not trying to talk you out of it. Its rule base, its readability scoring and its team style guides have no equivalent in aiCat.
The case for aiCat is a different working day: six kinds of task, two or three languages, a dozen applications — half of them outside a browser — and an objection to paying a separate subscription for each.
Try aiCat on the text Grammarly cannot reach
Free to start, 10 aiCatCoins included, no card. macOS, Windows and Linux.
aiCat pricing at a glance
| Plan | Price | aiCatCoins / month | Max selection | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10 | 500 chars | Everything aiCat does, plus free dictation and your own memory |
| Premium | from $6/mo (list $10) | 3 000 | 5 000 chars | Think More, read-aloud, encrypted memory, premium models |
| Team + Offline | from $18/member | 12 000 | 50 000 chars | Edit your memory, MCP access, local models, team sync |
| Enterprise | from $90/member | 150 000 | Unlimited | SSO, audit, best coin rate |
Read the whole page? Then you were deciding. Try both — Grammarly keeps its key
aiCat is free to start with 10 aiCatCoins a month and does not conflict with anything else on your machine.
Frequently asked
Is aiCat a good Grammarly alternative?
It depends on why you are looking. aiCat replaces Grammarly for people who want one key that acts on text anywhere on the machine, in any language. It does not replace Grammarly for deep grammar, spelling and clarity checking in english, which is what Grammarly is built around.
Is aiCat cheaper than Grammarly?
aiCat's floor is lower and its shape is different. Grammarly has a free tier that never expires and paid plans starting from about $12 a month. aiCat starts free with 10 aiCatCoins a month and Premium starts from $6, but the part that matters if you write in bursts is that aiCatCoins can be bought outright and do not expire — a quiet month costs nothing at all. If you write English professionally every day, Grammarly's price is not the reason to leave it.
Can I use aiCat and Grammarly together?
Yes, and plenty of people should. Grammarly underlines as you type in the places it reaches; aiCat sits on a hotkey and only acts when you press it, so they do not fight over the same keystroke or the same field. The usual split is Grammarly for long English documents and aiCat for everything outside the browser and everything not in English.
What does Grammarly do that aiCat does not?
A far longer track record on English style, and it shows on long-form documents; A document-level editing interface, rather than a result window over a selection; Style guides and brand tones an organisation can enforce; Suggestions that appear as you type, without pressing anything.
What is aiCat?
aiCat is a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux. You select text anywhere on your computer, press one hotkey, and an AI does what you need with it — proof-read, translate, explain, check the facts, read it aloud, or answer a question about it.
Does aiCat work in every application?
Yes. It works at the operating-system level rather than through per-app plugins, so it covers native apps, browsers, IDEs, terminals and PDF viewers alike.