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Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

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Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#31

Post by mhuffman »

kylebenzle wrote: post #25
zlwaterfield wrote: post #2

After years with Grammarly, I wanted a simpler, cheaper way to improve my writing. So I built Scramble, a Chrome extension that uses an LLM for writing enhancements. Key features: - Uses your OpenAI API key (100% local) - Pre-defined prompts for various improvements - Highlight text and wait for suggestions - Currently fixed to GPT-4-turbo Future plans: add LLM provider/model choice, custom prompts, bug fixes, and im…

Without marketing speak can I ask why anyone would have a need for a service like grammerly, I always thought it was odd trying to sell a subscription based spell checker (AI is just a REALLY good spell checker).

The "grammar" part, at least in a professional setting. You might be shocked at how many people will write an email pretty much like they would talk to friends at a club or send a text message (complete with emojis!) or just generally butcher professional correspondence.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#32

Post by jillesvangurp »

Alex4386 wrote: post #26

People really should stop calling a glorified openAI API as an open-source software.

There are several free alternatives to OpenAI that use the same API; which would make it possible to substitute OpenAI for one of those models in this extension. At least on paper. There is an open issue on the github repository requesting something like that.

So, it's not as clear cut. The general approach of using LLMs for this is not a bad one; LLMs are pretty good at this stuff.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#33

Post by trog »

senko wrote: post #24
polemic wrote: post #21

Seems a stretch to call it open source.

The source seems to be at the linked repo, and the license is MIT. How’s that a stretch?

> The source seems to be at the linked repo, and the license is MIT. How’s that a stretch?

Speaking for myself, I clicked on this thinking it might be open source in the sense of something I can run fully locally, like with a small grammar-only model.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#34

Post by dotancohen »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #32
Alex4386 wrote: post #26

People really should stop calling a glorified openAI API as an open-source software.

There are several free alternatives to OpenAI that use the same API; which would make it possible to substitute OpenAI for one of those models in this extension. At least on paper. There is an open issue on the github repository requesting something like that. So, it's not as clear cut. The general approach of using LLMs for this is not a bad one; LLMs are pretty good at this stuff.

Yes, but the API at the end is providing the core functionality. Simply swapping out one LLM model for another - let alone by a different company altogether - will completely change the effectiveness and usefulness of the application.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#35

Post by dotancohen »

mhuffman wrote: post #31
kylebenzle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without marketing speak can I ask why anyone would have a need for a service like grammerly, I always thought it was odd trying to sell a subscription based spell checker (AI is just a REALLY good spell checker).

The "grammar" part, at least in a professional setting. You might be shocked at how many people will write an email pretty much like they would talk to friends at a club or send a text message (complete with emojis!) or just generally butcher professional correspondence.

So it may be more attractive to employers to check their employees' output, rather than an individual checking his own?

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#36

Post by dotancohen »

senko wrote: post #24
polemic wrote: post #21

Seems a stretch to call it open source.

The source seems to be at the linked repo, and the license is MIT. How’s that a stretch?

The MIT licensed code is a wrapper for the OpenAI API. That OpenAI API provides the core functionality, and it is not open source.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#37

Post by weinzierl »

slg wrote: post #28

I have been using LanguageTool[1] for years as "an open source alternative to [old school] Grammarly". It doesn't do that fancy "make this text more professional" AI stuff like this or Grammarly can now do, but they offer a self-hosted version so you don't need to send everything you write to OpenAI. If all you want is a better spelling/grammar checker, I highly recommend it. [1] - https://github.com/languagetool-org…

It's great. I had a subscription for Grammarly for a couple of years and used both tools in parallel, but found myself mostly using languagetool increasingly. It is strictly better, I'd say even for English but certainly if you need other languages or deal with multilingual documents. So I canceled Grammarly and didn't miss it since.

You also can self-host and we do that at my workplace, because we deal with sensitive documents.

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