The launch email is clear and correct, but it still needs the customer context from the brief.
Free Grammarly Alternative
Clico writes better without leaving your page.
Grammarly fixes your typos. Clico writes for you. Drafts, replies, rewrites, and research inside every text box. Free.
No API key · No credit card · Works on all Chromium browsers
Uses the open page you choose to ground the rewrite without leaving the text box.
The Short Answer
Choose the product around the job you need to finish, then keep both when correction and contextual drafting are separate parts of your workflow.
Choose Clico for Context
Type @ to add an open tab, then draft or rewrite with the email, research, or page you selected available to the prompt.
Choose Grammarly for Correction
Use Grammarly when spelling, grammar, and continuous correction are the primary job.
Use Both for Different Jobs
Grammarly can flag issues as you type. Open Clico when you need a draft, rewrite, summary, or answer grounded in chosen browser context.
Clico vs Grammarly, side by side
Clico does everything Grammarly does. Spelling, grammar, tone, plus rewrites, drafts full emails, and reads your open tabs for context.
| Feature | Clico | Grammarly |
|---|---|---|
| Spelling and grammar | Via AI rewrite | ✓ Core feature |
| Tone adjustment | ✓ Any tone via prompt | Limited presets, Premium |
| Paraphrasing | ✓ Any text, any site | Premium only |
| Full draft generation | ✓ From a prompt | Paid GrammarlyGO tier |
| Context from open tabs | ✓ Type @ to pull context | ✗ Not supported |
| Page aware context | ✓ Reads the page | ✗ Only your typed text |
| Summarize any webpage | ✓ Double tap ⌘ | ✗ Not supported |
| Highlight to search | ✓ Text and images | ✗ Not supported |
| Voice input | ✓ Hold ⌘ to speak | ✗ Not supported |
| Choose your AI model | ✓ Gemini, Claude, GPT | ✗ Proprietary only |
| Offline use | ✗ Requires internet | ✓ Local grammar check |
| Works on every website | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Price | Free includes 200 monthly credits. Pro includes 2,000 monthly credits. | $12/mo Premium, $144/yr |
- Clico
- Via AI rewrite
- Grammarly
- ✓ Core feature
- Clico
- ✓ Any tone via prompt
- Grammarly
- Limited presets, Premium
- Clico
- ✓ Any text, any site
- Grammarly
- Premium only
- Clico
- ✓ From a prompt
- Grammarly
- Paid GrammarlyGO tier
- Clico
- ✓ Type @ to pull context
- Grammarly
- ✗ Not supported
- Clico
- ✓ Reads the page
- Grammarly
- ✗ Only your typed text
- Clico
- ✓ Double tap ⌘
- Grammarly
- ✗ Not supported
- Clico
- ✓ Text and images
- Grammarly
- ✗ Not supported
- Clico
- ✓ Hold ⌘ to speak
- Grammarly
- ✗ Not supported
- Clico
- ✓ Gemini, Claude, GPT
- Grammarly
- ✗ Proprietary only
- Clico
- ✗ Requires internet
- Grammarly
- ✓ Local grammar check
- Clico
- ✓ Yes
- Grammarly
- ✓ Yes
- Clico
- Free includes 200 monthly credits. Pro includes 2,000 monthly credits.
- Grammarly
- $12/mo Premium, $144/yr
What Clico does differently
Draft, search and add tab context without leaving the field where you are writing.
Drafts appear where you’re already typing
Press ⌘+O in Notion, Docs, Gmail, Slack, anywhere. Describe what you want. Clico writes it directly at your cursor. No copy paste, no new tab, no context lost between apps.
Highlight anything. Get the answer.
Select a phrase, a sentence, or a chunk of text on any page. Clico searches the web, pulls sourced answers, and shows them inline. You never leave the page you were reading.
Type @ to pull any open tab into the conversation
Add any open tab as context to your prompt. Clico reads the email thread, the research paper, the doc you were just reading, and bakes it into the draft. Your writing knows what you know.
How to use Clico
Four steps from install to context aware writing.
Install & pin Clico
One click from the Chrome Web Store. Pin the icon to your toolbar so Clico is always one keystroke away.
Press ⌘ + O in any text box
Gmail, Google Docs, LinkedIn, Notion, Slack, the popup lands right where your cursor is.
Describe it, press Enter
Plain English is enough, “reply in French,” “make it shorter,” “draft a follow up.” The draft lands at your cursor.
Type @ to add tab context
Pull an open tab, an email thread, a doc, a GitHub issue, into the prompt. Clico reads it and writes with that context.
Why People Are Switching From Grammarly in 2026
The 2026 story
Grammarly serves over 40 million daily users and generates more than $700 million in annual revenue (Grammarly, May 2025). It is the most widely used writing tool in the world. But a growing number of those users are looking for alternatives, and the reasons go beyond pricing.
The core product degraded after AI was added
Long time premium subscribers report that Grammarly’s grammar correction, the feature that made it essential, has gotten worse since the company added generative AI. One three year subscriber in the top 5% of daily users wrote that Grammarly now “makes your grammar worse, not better” (Medium, June 2025). Writing professors have started banning it in classrooms because students’ writing quality declined when using it (Threads, September 2024). Researchers documented that its suggestions flatten creative voice, replacing phrases like “My brain was doing cartwheels” with sterile alternatives like “I was confused” (The FLTMAG, July 2025).
AI rewrites trigger plagiarism detectors
Copyleaks tested 500 files through Grammarly’s GenAI “Improve” feature and found that 31.6% were flagged as AI generated content afterward (Copyleaks, February 2026). Originality.ai found similar results: content that only used grammar and spelling corrections stayed human, but content that accepted rephrase and rewrite suggestions was flagged at significantly higher rates (Originality.ai, October 2025). Grammarly’s own support page acknowledges this, stating that their rewrite agents “come from our LLM” and advising users to avoid rewrite agents if concerned about AI detection.
From grammar checker to “Superhuman Suite”
Grammarly is no longer a grammar company. In February 2024, it laid off 230 employees to pivot toward AI (TechCrunch, February 2024). It then acquired Coda in early 2025 and Superhuman in July 2025 (TechCrunch, July 2025). By October 2025, the company rebranded entirely as “Superhuman,” with the grammar checker becoming one product within a suite that includes AI email, collaborative docs, and a proactive AI agent called Superhuman Go (Scroll.media, October 2025). For users who signed up for a writing tool, this is scope creep.
The Expert Review lawsuit
In August 2025, Grammarly launched “Expert Review,” a $12/month feature that presented AI generated feedback as if it came from real journalists and authors, including Stephen King and Julia Angwin, without their consent (FindLaw, March 2026). Screenshots showed the feature attributing “advice” to deceased figures like Carl Sagan (AI CERTs, March 2026). On March 11, 2026, journalist Julia Angwin filed a class action lawsuit. The same day, Grammarly disabled the feature (PRF Law, March 2026).
Four frustrations for $144 a year
Aggregated from Chrome Web Store reviews and uninstall feedback. The same four complaints come up again and again.
The correction paywall
Free users see the red underline but can’t see the fix. Unlocking corrections costs $144/year. AI rewrites cost more on top.
“Leaving after 9 years. Fixing simple errors is hidden behind a paywall. $144/year in the AI age is a joke.”
Mid sentence upsells
Pop ups, premium prompts, and notification badges interrupt your writing. Every correction becomes a sales pitch.
“It’s really annoying to keep showing pro suggestions when you can’t do anything about it. I just uninstalled.”
Slows your browser
Heavy RAM and CPU usage. Breaks other extensions. Gets worse on long documents.
Flattens your voice
Over corrections treat intentional style as errors. Rewrites strip the personal tone out of your writing.
“Premium suggestions often flatten individual voice. Rewritten sentences sound robotic and strip away personal voice.”
How Clico Compares to Other Grammarly Alternatives
Most Grammarly alternatives solve the same problem the same way: scan text, flag errors, suggest rewrites. Some do it cheaper. Some do it for specific niches. None of them rethink what a writing tool should actually do.
ProWritingAid
The most recommended alternative for long form writers (Kindlepreneur, April 2026). It offers 25+ writing reports covering style, pacing, and sentence variety. But it only analyzes the text you paste in. It knows nothing about what you’re writing about or what research informed your decisions.
LanguageTool
The best free option. Open source, supports 30+ languages, and the free tier is genuinely usable (becomeawritertoday.com, April 2026). It’s a better spellchecker. It’s not a better writing tool.
Wordtune
Focuses on sentence level rewriting rather than error correction. It offers alternative phrasings and is considered more context aware than Grammarly’s rewrites at the sentence level (Kindlepreneur, April 2026). But it operates sentence by sentence with zero awareness of your broader topic, sources, or intent.
Hemingway Editor
Scores readability and highlights passive voice, adverbs, and complex sentences. It doesn’t check grammar or spelling. It hasn’t meaningfully evolved in years (becomeawritertoday.com, April 2026).
ChatGPT and other AI chatbots
Powerful for generation and rewriting. But using them requires context switching: copy text, paste into a chat window, prompt it, copy the result back. They don’t live where you write or see what you were reading in the other tab.
Why Clico is the best Grammarly alternative in 2026
Every tool on this list treats your writing as an isolated block of text. Clico is different because it understands your browsing context. It reads your open tabs, remembers what you’ve been researching, and uses that information to help you write with better data, not just better grammar. It works inline wherever you’re already writing, and it doesn’t rewrite your voice into AI flavored corporate prose. In a market where Grammarly’s AI rewrite features trigger plagiarism detectors 31.6% of the time (Copyleaks, February 2026), a tool that respects your voice and your context is worth considering.
Trusted by writers. Private by design.
Ranked #1 on Product Hunt, reviewed by Chrome users, and backed by a privacy policy written in plain English.
“Not having to constantly jump back and forth between tabs to copy paste into ChatGPT saves so much time and mental energy.”ZhaoCheng Lynn
“Didn’t expect to love a browser extension this much! I’m literally in the middle of writing my thesis right now and Clico has been unexpectedly clutch.”ivy lin
Your text is sent to the AI model you pick (Gemini, Claude, or GPT) and nowhere else. Not stored. Not sold. Not used for training.
Frequently asked
Honest answers about how Clico compares to Grammarly.
Yes. A 2026 study by Copyleaks found that 31.6% of content run through Grammarly’s GenAI “Improve” feature was flagged as AI generated. Grammarly Support confirms that its rewrite agents use a large language model and recommends avoiding them when AI detection is a concern. Clico takes a different approach: instead of rewriting your words, it surfaces relevant context from your open tabs and research so you can write better in your own voice.
In August 2025, Grammarly launched “Expert Review,” a feature that presented AI generated feedback as if it came from real journalists and authors without their consent. In March 2026, journalist Julia Angwin filed a class action lawsuit, and Grammarly disabled the feature the same day. The incident raised questions about how AI writing tools represent their capabilities to users.
Most alternatives (ProWritingAid, LanguageTool, Wordtune, Hemingway) only analyze the text you give them. They can’t see what you’re researching in your other tabs or remember what articles you read earlier. Clico is a Chrome extension that reads your open tabs and browsing context to help you write with better information, not just better grammar. It works inline on any website: Gmail, Google Docs, Notion, LinkedIn, and more.
Yes. Clico Free includes 200 monthly credits and does not require a credit card. Pro includes 2,000 monthly credits, expanded Web model access, and enhanced routing.
Grammarly flags typos and grammar issues in text you already typed. Clico generates the text for you, reads the email thread or page you’re on, and drafts a reply you can edit. They solve different problems, and many users run both.
Yes, both. Clico activates inside any text field on any website, including Gmail compose, Google Docs, Slack, Notion, LinkedIn, Reddit, X, and Substack. One shortcut opens it in place, no setup needed inside each app.
Your text is sent to the AI model you pick (Gemini, Claude, or GPT) and nowhere else. Clico does not store your writing, sell it, or train models on it. Full details live in the privacy policy linked in the footer.
No. Clico relies on cloud AI models for generation, so an internet connection is required. Without one, the extension stays installed but cannot produce new text until you reconnect.
Clico reads, writes, and translates in over 50 languages. Ask in English for a reply in Japanese and you get Japanese. The underlying models handle the same languages you would use in ChatGPT or Gemini directly.
Yes. Install from the Chrome Web Store and it works on first use with included access. Creating a free account gives you 200 monthly credits and syncs your preferences across devices.
Type @ inside the Clico prompt and a list of your open tabs appears. Pick one and Clico reads that tab’s content as context for your draft. Nothing leaves your browser until you send the prompt, and Clico only reads tabs you explicitly select.
You choose between Google Gemini for speed, Anthropic Claude for nuance, or OpenAI GPT for versatility. Switch at any time in settings. Grammarly ties you to one proprietary model with no option to change.
Yes. They do not conflict. Grammarly underlines grammar issues in real time. Clico opens on demand when you need an AI draft, rewrite, or summary. Many users run both at once during the transition.
Write smarter, not just cleaner.
AI that creates, rewrites, searches, and speaks. Free, in every text box.