Live data from Hacker News

Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

github.com

61–70 of 174 posts

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#62
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…

How come I have never heard of languagetool before or maybe I have never looked beyond Grammerly. Thank You!

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#63

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).

Without marketing speak, can I ask why anyone would have a need for a service like Grammarly?

    ---
Manual corrections here, but maybe they give a clue?

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#65

How does this compare to https://languagetool.org , which is also open source? I'm not sure what kind of AI Languagetool uses but it works really well!

LanguageTool is not open source; it is open core. There are proprietary "premium rules," and you won't get them in a self-hosted version.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#66
post #57

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…

Rookie question: the openAPI endpoint costs extra right? Not something that comes with chatGPT or chatGPT+.

Yes

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everyone stands on the shoulders of giants.

My older brother who got me into coding learned to code in Assembly. He doesn't really consider most of my work writing in high level languages to be "coding". So maybe there's something here. But if I had to get into the underlying structure, I could . I do wonder whether the same can be said for people who just kludge together a bunch of APIs that produce magical result sets.

  > But if I had to get into the underlying structure, I could.
How do you propose to get into the underlying structure of the OpenAPI API? Breach their network and steal their code and models? I don't understand what you're arguing.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#68
post #57

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…

Rookie question: the openAPI endpoint costs extra right? Not something that comes with chatGPT or chatGPT+.

yes, but gpt-4o-mini costs very little so you probably will spend well under $1/month

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#69
So it doesn't provide realtime feedback on your writing within a dialog box like Grammarly does? It's just a (non-open source) OpenAI set of pre-written prompts?

Come on.

Pitch this honestly. It'll save me clicks if I'm using an LLM to checker grammar already, but if I use Grammarly it's not an alternative at all. Not by a long way.

Re: Scramble: Open-Source Alternative to Grammarly

#70

How does this compare to https://languagetool.org , which is also open source? I'm not sure what kind of AI Languagetool uses but it works really well!

LanguageTool is not open source; it is open core. There are proprietary "premium rules," and you won't get them in a self-hosted version.

They use the LGPL license for a lot of their work.

https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool/blob/master...

Post reply on HN