Hemingway

Hemingway Editor is the writing tool that makes your prose bolder and clearer by surfacing overly-complex sentences, passive voice, weak adverbs, and difficult-to-read passages. Created in 2013 by brothers Adam and Ben Long as a side project, Hemingway has become the most-recommended writing aid for non-fiction writing — used by founders for landing page copy, marketers for blog posts, students for essays, and any writer trying to make their prose more direct. What makes Hemingway distinctive vs Grammarly is the focus. Grammarly is a comprehensive grammar + spell checker + style assistant. Hemingway focuses narrowly on readability + clarity — highlighting sentence complexity, passive constructions, weak adverbs, and reading level. The Hemingway aesthetic is opinionated: 'good writing is bold and clear' inspired by Ernest Hemingway's prose style. Apply Hemingway to your writing and the average sentence length drops, the readability grade lowers, and the writing feels more direct. The core feature set: • **Readability grade** — Flesch-Kincaid grade level showing complexity (target Grade 8-10 for most prose) • **Hard-to-read sentence highlighting** — yellow + red highlights for overly complex sentences • **Passive voice detection** — yellow highlights for passive constructions ('was written by' vs 'wrote') • **Adverb count** — highlights weak adverbs ('very', 'really', 'just', 'quite') suggesting cuts • **Complex phrase suggestions** — alternative phrasings for unnecessarily complex constructions • **Word count + reading time** — at-a-glance stats while writing • **Format mode** — write in Hemingway's clean distraction-free environment • **Edit mode** — paste existing writing for analysis + improvement • **Plus version AI features** — AI suggestions for fixing highlighted issues + paraphrasing • **Export options** — to Markdown, HTML, PDF, Word • **Web + desktop versions** — web app free, desktop ($19.99 one-time) for offline + advanced • **No account required (web)** — open hemingwayapp.com and start writing immediately • **AI Plus subscription** — newer paid tier with AI rewriting + tone adjustment For writers + founders + marketers the use cases: • **Landing page copy** — make value propositions bolder + clearer (huge for conversion) • **Blog post editing** — clean up content marketing pieces for readability • **Email writing** — sharpen cold outreach + sales emails (shorter sentences = better response rates) • **Marketing copy editing** — ad copy, social posts, taglines • **Book writing + manuscript editing** — non-fiction authors checking readability • **Student essays** — improve writing for academic submissions • **Newsletter writing** — accessible writing for broad audiences • **Founder personal brand writing** — clear LinkedIn/X posts that read well The pricing is friendly. Web app is free with unlimited use — no signup, no limits, completely free. Desktop app is $19.99 one-time (Mac + Windows + Linux). Plus subscription at $20/month adds AI rewriting + paraphrasing + tone adjustment + cloud sync (recently introduced). For most users the free web app is sufficient — the desktop app and Plus features are nice-to-haves rather than necessities. Where Hemingway wins clearly: the singular focus on readability + clarity is more useful than Grammarly's broader scope for non-fiction writing; the free web app is genuinely unlimited (no signup walls or feature gates); the opinionated 'shorter + bolder = better' aesthetic genuinely improves most prose; one-time $20 desktop license is generous in a subscription-everything world; the simplicity means no learning curve. Where it loses: not a grammar/spell checker — you need Grammarly for that (or built-in browser checkers); the opinionated style doesn't fit all writing (fiction, technical documentation, formal academic writing benefit less); the AI features in Plus subscription are weaker than ChatGPT + Claude for similar tasks at much higher cost; no real-time integration with Google Docs / Word / browsers (you copy-paste back and forth). My take: for any founder writing landing page copy, marketers writing blog content, or anyone writing non-fiction prose where clarity matters — Hemingway is mandatory tooling and the free web app is enough. Paste your draft, fix the red sentences, kill the adverbs, ship. For broader grammar + spell checking, use Grammarly alongside Hemingway. For technical/formal writing where complexity is necessary, ignore Hemingway's suggestions to simplify. The classic workflow: write in your normal editor (Notion, Google Docs, etc.), paste into Hemingway for clarity check, edit per suggestions, paste back. 5-minute process that meaningfully improves writing quality.