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It’s that time again. Black Friday. November 26, to be exact. And the many enticing deals you’ve been looking forward to at this time of the year are here as well.

There are three types of Black Friday shoppers. Those who are successful because they have prepared. Those who are successful because they got lucky. And, those who let some good deals simply slip away.

Your best bet, of course, is to be prepared, which is the purpose of this guide.

As you go down this list, you’ll find discounts, some pretty amazing offers, a few surprises perhaps – and plenty of inspiration.

We’ve been keeping close tabs on the various Black Friday discounts and promotions, and we’ve corralled the best of the bunch for you.

Starting with:

1. Brizy – The No-Code Website Builder For Non-Techies

Brizy is a fast and easy-to-use website builder for designers and agencies. Take advantage of Brizy’s Black Friday special and tap into the skills of a team that has been creating website-building tools for over 11 years.

This premier website builder gets better with each update.

  • Web designers can choose between Brizy for WordPress and the Brizy Cloud website builder, which includes hosting;
  • Agencies can choose among several white-label options;
  • Brizy brings power to the novice; use the pre-made designs or start with a blank page and let the imagination be the guide.

Black Friday is a time to take advantage of great deals, and this year is no different.

  • Big discounts are available on Brizy’s white label agency plans;
  • Participate at no cost to win a MacBook PRO;
  • Partner perks and discounts;
  • And exclusive new designs.

Design or coding experience is not a requirement to use Brizy’s drag and drop visual builder.

Click on the banner to take advantage of these great Black Friday specials.

2. Portfoliobox

A 50% discount on any portfolio website builder would seem like a good deal. On the other hand, getting one at 50% off that enables you to quickly create a portfolio website that reflects your creative personality and will truly set you apart from the crowd is definitely worth taking advantage of.

Portfoliobox offers:

  • Mix and match templates to help achieve a unique look;
  • Powerful eCommerce functionality built right into the platform;
  • Safe and secure private client galleries;
  • An included Domain (custom domain with Pro plans);
  • Fantastic 24/7 support to keep problems to a minimum;
  • Affordable, transparent pricing plans that let you know what you are getting before you buy.

Click on the banner to find out more about this fast, affordable, and easy to work with a portfolio website builder for creatives.

3. wpDataTables

wpDataTables is a popular, power-packed plugin that can manage vast amounts of data in seconds and organize it to build a table or chart the way you want.

  • wpDataTables and charts are responsive, customizable, and easy to edit and maintain;
  • wpDataTables readily accepts data from a variety of data sources, from multiple database connections, and in the most used formats;
  • Tables and charts can be configured to nicely blend in with other website content and a website’s overall design, plus it is easy to add spice to a table or chart by using colors, adjusting font sizes, and highlighting key data using conditional formatting.

wpDataTables features Elementor and Gutenberg integration, provides the ability to connect WordPress tables with Google API, allows cascade data filtering, and much more.

Click on the banner to take advantage of the 30% off Black Friday special.

4. Amelia WordPress Booking Plugin

Amelia can be a genuine time and money saver for a variety of business types. Amelia automates and streamlines a business’s booking process.

  • Amelia relieves business owners and managers from the task of managing multiple appointments and events;
  • Clients and customers love the ability to make and manage their appointments 24/7;
  • Bookings and events are managed from a single platform, even when multiple locations are involved.

Annual and lifetime subscriptions are available.

5. Mobirise Free Website Builder

As it is an offline builder, Mobirise does not tie you to any platform, you can host it anywhere, and you have total control over creating the website you have in mind.

Mobirise:

  • is drag and drop and easy and simple use;
  • is based on the latest Google AMP or Bootstrap 5, so your site will be mobile-friendly and crazy fast;
  • comes with eCommerce, huge selections of themes, blocks and templates, and a shopping cart.

Mobirise is free for both personal and commercial use.

6. Slider Revolution

There is a difference between an “interesting” website and one whose WOW effects cause it to stand far above the competition.

Slider Revolution specializes in WOW effects that can take any website to the next level, and it can be yours on Black Friday at a 33% discount on all licenses.

The Slider Revolution package includes:

  • Innovative templates and add-ons;
  • Advanced automation and special effects tools.

Grab the Black Friday offer now.

7. Getillustrations Bundle – Commercial illustrations for the web

Digital illustrations help attract attention to and pique interest in your website.

Getillustrations.com features a package of more than 9000 commercial web and app illustrations in a wide range of topics.

  • This package features all the design formats you’re likely to need, e.g., Ai, SVG, PNG, Figma, Sketch, and more;
  • Great illustrations to spice up landing pages are included.

The package is available at a 25% discount. Use coupon code EliteDesingers25.

8. Litho – Multipurpose Elementor WordPress Theme

Litho is a creative, modern, and highly customizable theme that can be used for any type of business niche as well as for creating eCommerce, blog, and portfolio websites.

This multipurpose Elementor WordPress theme’s features include –

  • 36+ ready home pages, 200+ creative elements, and a 300+ template library;
  • One-click demo import;
  • Top loading speed and SEO result capabilities.

Litho also features detailed online documentation and top-of-the-line customer support.

9. 8bio – Linktree Alternative

Instagram and TikTok enthusiasts, take note!

With the 8bio tool at your fingertips, you can add a clickable URL to your social media platform profiles so visitors can visit your website, product page, or any other important page.

8bio offers:

  • Beautiful skins and catchy animated backgrounds;
  • The ability to link to your own domain or to *.8b.io;
  • Powerful SEO and tracking options.

The 8bio tool can also be used for your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube posts.

10. XStore – Highly Customizable WordPress WooCommerce Theme

XStore is designed to work with the best page builders on the market and is fully compatible with the Elementor and WPBakery builders.

The XStore package includes

  • $510 worth of carefully handpicked Premium Plugins for WooCommerce;
  • More than 110+ awesome Prebuilt Shops;
  • A built-in AMP for WooCommerce, a Full Ajax Shop, multi-vendor support, and much more.

Become one of XStore’s more than 60,000+ happy customers by taking advantage of the Black Friday special.

Knowing that it’s the early bird that gets the worm, we’ve worked hard to place before you and your fellow website designers and agencies this enticing selection of the best Black Friday offers.

You will no doubt find some of the products familiar. A few might not be. In either case, the opportunities are here for you to get some great deals on some premier products.

Happy shopping!

Source

The post Live Now: Top 10 Black Friday 2021 Deals for Designers and Agencies first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

In my experience, the biggest challenge that freelancers face — more than winning clients or setting prices — is project management; take on too much work, and you’ll start missing deadlines, take on too little, and you’ll start missing your rent.

Some people are naturally organized; they rock up at their desk at 08:59, fully confident in what they will spend the next 8–12 hours working on. Let’s be kind and say that I am not one of them, and leave it at that. The only way I have managed to survive the industry is by self-consciously micro-managing my schedule on a daily basis.

When I worked in an agency, I knew what I would be working on days in advance. Now, I know 90% of what I’ll be working on, weeks in advance.

That level of organization requires very, very, very careful planning. I hold team meetings at the end of the day, yes, “team” meetings of one person. To do that I use a number of tools that suit me.

How to Choose a Project Management App

The most important aspect of any project is the end. That’s when the client will assess your work, and that’s when you get paid. So when you choose a project management solution, make sure it gives you a clear path to the project conclusion.

I know one freelancer who sets himself a hard stop at 7 pm every day. At 7 pm, he downs tools switches off, and walks away. I once heard him end a client call at 7 pm because he’d reached his cut-off point. It made me wince — I would have stayed on until the call concluded — but it hasn’t affected his business.

I know another successful freelancer who works on a budget. When she has earned the money she needs for that day, she stops. She bills by the hour to make this work, so when she sits down in the morning, she knows exactly what time she’ll finish.

Personally, I prefer a task-based approach. I know what I have to get done; if I can get ahead, then great, but my main focus is ensuring I don’t fall behind. I believe that if you hit your deadlines, everything else will take care of itself. Admittedly, there have been a few late-nights (and all-nights) over the years, but thankfully they’re less common these days.

No one style of project management suits everyone. And it doesn’t matter what approach you take, provided you take an approach.

8 Best Project Management Apps for Freelancers

As a freelancer, the most important thing characteristic you can have is reliability. Cultivate a reputation for delivering on your promises, and you’ll become invaluable to your clients. The best project management app is the one that helps you keep your promises.

There are some excellent tools on the market that facilitate project management, but most are aimed at SMEs, or project managers running a team of freelancers.

The tools here are listed from least, to most useful for the average freelancer. I’ve avoided too many time-tracking apps because I find these tend to encourage billing by the hour, which is potentially damaging to your business long term. If you do need pure time-tracking, check out Harvest. I’ve also avoided solutions that are too large-scale to benefit freelancers. If you’re looking for a project management tool for teams, then Basecamp, Jira, Project.co, and Redbooth are all worth considering.

Sadly none of these apps are perfect, and there’s a good chance you’ll need to use two or three to manage your projects.

8. Todoist

Todoist is hands down the best to-do app on the market. The downside is that its feature set is minimal.

Todoist really excels at lists. You can break down tasks into sub-tasks, and sub-sub-tasks. The downside is there’s no real scheduling or comparison of multiple projects in a single view.

The mobile apps are great, and Todoist recently introduced boards, a form of kanban board that gives you a good overview of everything. If it introduces a gantt chart, I can see myself relying on it more.

Todoist has a free forever plan that is fine for most freelancers, and the paid plans start at just $3 per month.

7. Bonsai

Bonsai is an excellent service for freelancers that grew from a simple invoicing app to include proposals, contracts, time-tracking, and more.

I used Bonsai for invoicing for a couple of years, and it does everything it claims to do. However, there are a couple of significant areas where it falls down. Firstly, its invoicing is super-aggressive and cannot be customized — make sure you’re on friendly terms with any client you send a Bonsai invoice to. Secondly, while it does a good job of tracking what you have done, it doesn’t help you plan what needs to be done beyond a formal proposal.

If you’re running a few simple projects, then it’s possible Bonsai is right for you. Pricing starts at $19 per month.

6. Monday

Monday is one of the biggest players in the project management market. It offers a dizzying array of options, and if this list were aimed at project management for agencies, Monday would be further along our countdown. Monday may suit freelancers, particularly those who have migrated from agency work, but for most, it’s more than we need.

There is a free-forever plan that covers almost everything you could want. However, if you need to view your projects as a gantt chart — and I strongly suggest you do — then you’ll need to update to the standard plan, which starts at $8 per user per month, with a minimum of three seats, meaning at least $24 per month when billed annually.

5. AND.CO

AND.CO stands out as a slick, easy-to-use option for managing a freelance business. Like Bonsai, it allows you to manage proposals, invoicing, time-tracking, expenses, and more.

AND.CO also has extremely well-liked customer support. An underestimated consideration when you don’t have your own accounts team to resolve problems.

As with other solutions of this type, the task-management is lacking. It does include a simple to-do list, but in my opinion, it’s not sufficient, and you’ll need to supplement it with something that supports gantt charts.

There’s a free forever plan, but it’s barely more than a free trial. Pricing for full-featured access starts at $18 per month when billed annually.

4. ClickUp

ClickUp is a SaaS that aims to replace just about everything else you could need. Unlike some options on this list, it includes a CRM, which is a bonus because there’s nothing worse than relying on the search function in your email to track down someone’s contact details.

ClickUp also offers a genuinely free-forever account with enough features to make it usable. If you choose to upgrade to a paid plan, it’s just $5 per user per month, which is excellent value.

If anything, there’s just too much in here. If you’re someone who considers themselves a power-user who enjoys digging into every nuance of a UI, then ClickUp could be for you. But, if, like me, you favor a simple tool that does what it’s told and gets out of the way, then there are better options.

3. Asana

Asana is probably the best-known project management tool on the market. It offers a tremendous number of options and is flexible enough for any style of project management.

There’s a free forever plan that is ideal for getting started and offers you most — you may be sensing a theme here — of the features you’ll need. But Asana’s best feature is its excellent timeline implementation of the gantt chart, for which you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan costing $10.99 per user per month, with a minimum number of 2 seats that translates to a rather expensive $21.98 per month.

2. Trello

Trello is famous for its kanban boards, and many people prefer them to gantt charts, which has helped the app grow rapidly in the last few years.

If you’re prepared to pay $10 per user per month, Trello actually offers gantt charts as well, in the form of its timeline feature.

Trello is mainly designed for teams, not freelancers. However, if you do have the budget for a premium plan, Trello gives you an enviable ability to switch project management styles on a whim.

1. Toggl

Toggl is perhaps the perfect balance of time-tracking and gantt chart that is ideal for freelance projects.

As with most tools, Toggl is designed for teams, with billing starting at $8 per user per month. However, it offers a solo plan, designed for freelancers, that is free forever.

The main thing you miss out on with Toggl’s Solo plan is team timelines, which you won’t need unless you’re outsourcing work. One other obvious omission is unlimited planning boards, which you may find yourself paying for sooner or later.

But for a mixture of simplicity and powerful features available for $0, Toggl is hard to beat.

 

Featured image via Pexels

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The post 8 Freelance Project Management Apps for 2021+ first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

If you have a WordPress website, you’re obviously aware of the benefits this premier open-source website-building platform brings to the table.

But are you aware of the legion of website and business enhancement tools lying in wait among the thousands of cool WordPress plugins currently on the market; one or more of which could easily take your site or business to the next level?

What’s out there? Quite a bit, obviously. 

Which useful WordPress plugins are “must-haves” for me? It could take you a ton of time to find the answer to that one. 

That’s what we’re here for.

10 essential WordPress plugins are admittedly a small sample size. But these are 10 of the very best, and we’re guessing that one or more of them could be just what you’ve been looking for.

1. Amelia WordPress Booking Plugin

This game-changing booking plugin fully automates your business’s interaction with existing and potential clients and allows you to focus on key business operations instead of having to constantly interrupt your workflow to manage appointments.

  • Installing and configuring Amelia can be done with just a few clicks. You don’t have to know anything about coding.
  • Amelia can manage an unlimited number of appointments for an unlimited number of clients, an unlimited number of employees, and at multiple locations.
  • Clients can book appointments 24/7 and manage their own appointments as well as their profiles from the front end.
  • Amelia accepts deposit payments, sends out appointment reminders, and can charge different rates for different appointments.
  • If you have a global clientele, Amelia takes into account customer time zones as well as manages translated notifications if you have a multilingual site.
  • Amelia also manages event bookings, whether they are recurring or one-time.

In the unlikely event you encounter a problem with Amelia, the customer support team stands ready to help.

2. wpDataTables

The wpDataTables WordPress plugin allows users to quickly and easily create responsive, interactive, and highly customizable tables and charts from large amounts of data.

Key features include:

  • The ability to create tables that allow front-end editing, whether they are created manually or are MySQL-based
  • Advanced filtering capabilities that enable front-end users to filter table data by single or multiple column values
  • Automatic syncing of created and published Google Sheets
  • Simple wpDataTables wizards to access the HighCharts, Chart.js, and Google free charts libraries

wpDataTables’ many other features include:

  • Connection support to MySQL, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL databases
  • Responsive design from any data source
  • Creating tables from CSV, JSON, MySQL, and Excel and Google spreadsheet data
  • Formidable Forms plugin support
  • Sorting by single or multiple columns
  • Data color-coding using conditional formatting

More than 50,000 companies and individuals have placed their trust in wpDataTables.

3. Visual Composer Website Builder

Visual Composer is a new, ReactJS-based intuitive drag and drop website builder that enables you to create a website quickly, easily, and hassle-free.

This website-building popular plugin:

  • Enables business owners to showcase their brand online with its drag and drop editor and professional templates.
  • Its feature-rich design controls enable designers to achieve pixel-perfect perfection as they bring their projects to life.
  • Its top-of-the-line marketing content elements give its users the ability to create high-conversion landing pages, integrate with social platforms, and more.
  • Makes building a beautiful WooCommerce-based online store a piece of cake.
  • Features a library of 500+ content elements and templates that is downloadable from the cloud
  • Offers free and premium versions for business owners to start easily and scale their online presence

Your site will be SEO-friendly, fast, and responsive, and the support is terrific. Free and Premium versions (Starting at $49) are available.

4. Slider Revolution

Slider Revolution can do more than create sliders. A lot more.

  • It can add impressive (read that WOW) effects to an already notable website design.
  • It can give you new and unusual visual editing capabilities without requiring any coding on your part.
  • With its collection of hero blocks, sliders, WooCommerce carousels, and more, it brings beauty to any WordPress website.

5. Logic Hop

Logic Hop lets you customize your site’s content for individual customers or customer types.

  • Logic Hop supports personalizing your site in response to dozens of criteria so you can tailor your content to address a unique audience.
  • Logic Hop works with Gutenberg, Divi, Elementor, Beaver Builder, and every other page builder.

Any design or content element you can customize in WordPress can be customized in Logic Hop in minutes.

6. Stacks

The Stacks drag and drop native mobile app builder offers a full package of features to help you design your website or mobile app without coding.

  • Stacks works perfectly with WooCommerce and WordPress
  • Certificates required for Google Play Store or Apple Appstore are automatically generated
  • It takes but a single click to generate and upload the Android & iOS Application Package (APK & IPA)
  • Notifications to customers are easy to generate and send, and Stacks utilizes WooCommerce payment gateways.

7. Heroic Inbox

The Heroic Inbox plugin enables a business to manage all of its emails in shared inboxes right inside WordPress.

  • Customer data is presented on the sidebar next to your ongoing chat or message.
  • Key performance metrics are tracked so the team and overall company performance can be assessed.
  • Zero Inbox status can be quickly achieved and maintained.

8. Tablesome

This powerful WordPress table plugin allows you to quickly create a table and embed it in a post or page.

  • Tables can be imported from CSV and XLSX files.
  • Types of tables that can be created include large data tables, product catalogs, comparison tables, sports statistics, and more.
  • A shortcode builder for table and table element customizing is included

Tablesome is performance-optimized and SEO friendly and works smoothly with any WordPress theme.

9. Ads Pro Plugin – Multi-Purpose WordPress Advertising Manager

Ads Pro is the best ad manager for WordPress you are likely to come across.

Ads Pro features:

  • An intuitive backend Admin Panel that allows you to manage an unlimited number of ad spaces
  • A frontend User’s Panel from which you can control access to manage ads
  • 25+ user-friendly and responsive Ad Templates in 8 categories
  • 20 ad display options
  • 3 Billing Models (CPC, CPM, CPD) and 4 Payment Methods (PayPal, Stripe, Bank Transfer, WooCommerce)

10. Static Pages

Static pages/sites do not require any web programming or database design.

  • The Static Pages plugin allows you to publish any static page on a WordPress website in a matter of seconds.
  • You can improve sales by adding a beautiful landing page to your existing shop or blog or add a page with a Mailchimp subscribe form.
  • Or use Static Pages as an easy way to test something quickly and easily.

Have you been searching for a top-of-the-line WordPress plugin that will help you take your business to the next level?

There are 58,000+ useful WordPress plugins for you to choose from. That would be good news, except you could easily be overwhelmed trying to find just the right plugin for your website.

This post features a collection of top plugins for WordPress websites. Chances are good, you’ll find something here that will make your day.

 

[– This is a sponsored post on behalf of BAW media –]

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The post 10 Cool WordPress Plugins You Should Check Out first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.


Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot


Introduction: EnRoute Helm Chart

Helm is a popular package manager choice for Kubernetes. Installation of software, managing versions, upgrading versions, and finding charts from the registry are key benefits of Helm.

EnRoute helm chart installs the EnRoute Ingress Controller and provides easy configuration options to define policy for a service. The helm chart provides fine-grained control to define L7 policies with its ability to enable/disable plugins for a service using configuration options that can be specified when the helm is invoked.

Source de l’article sur DZONE


Overview

The formula is the heart of an Excel file. And of course, we all want to do correct calculations and deliver accurate results. When there is something wrong, we want to trace back to those referenced cells to find the root cause. Excel natively has a built-in convenient formula dependent/precedent trace feature, it highlights the dependent/precedent cells and displays arrows to indicate the relationships. This helps users to trace back and find any error formulas easily.

Now, when bringing the spreadsheet online, we can do more. We can display the relationships in a custom way that is most useful according to the application context, or bring them to a different service or application for doing the validation programmatically.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

Who is Grammarly for? Can a grammar checking tool like Grammarly replace a human editor and proofreader? Is the Grammarly checker worth it? Are the Grammarly free checks sufficient for me, or should I upgrade to Grammarly Premium? Should I install Grammarly on Chrome? How effective is Grammarly for Word? Is downloading the Grammarly desktop app worth it? You have questions…all of which we’re going to answer.

I have been using Grammarly regularly for proofreading my documents and emails since 2015 and have witnessed its evolution as a product firsthand. After checking over three million words during this period, I can confidently say that Grammarly has come a long way. Raising $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, and with more than a million downloads per month, Grammarly is now a top-1000 website by traffic worldwide.

I write a lot, so Grammarly has been my go-to writing assistant for correcting passages and enhancing my writing. I first tried the Free version, and in May 2020, I upgraded to the Premium version, finally! Grammarly Premium is a great tool that takes care of most of your writing, proofreading, and plagiarism-checking needs for intensive work.

In this article, I’ll explain what Grammarly is, its features, what it does (functions of all versions and products), the pros and cons of using Grammarly, my rating of Grammarly, who should use the Free version, and who should use the Premium version and the difference between the two. I’ll also explain how to use Grammarly properly. I’ll then compare it with other popular tools and suggest which ones suit your needs. In the end, I’ll leave you with my final assessment and FAQs.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an online digital writing assistant that checks for a range of English grammar and spelling mistakes. It also helps enhance the writing through its excellent context-based clarity suggestions (Premium version).

Grammarly is a writing aid that checks not only for spelling slights, grammar rules, and clarity issues but also identifies the tone of the writing to provide relevant instructions through its Error Cards. It also has a plagiarism checking tool, which is available with the Premium version.

Grammarly employs AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to check the content for all possible syntactic and semantic issues. Although it has an extensive database, it is still incomparable to human proofreading and professional editing, especially when it comes to understanding the context of the writing.

Grammarly Overview For Beginners – Compatible, Accessible

Grammarly is astonishingly easy to use, primarily due to its compatibility via the Browser Extension/Add-on, from which you can use it on millions of websites. Moreover, its other product forms, i.e., the Online Editor (Web App), Desktop Application, MS Word/Outlook Add-in, and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS/Android, make it accessible everywhere.

How Does Grammarly Work?

It automatically detects issues in the content in the Desktop App, the Online Editor, and the browser (even in Google Docs, which is in Beta at this time) via its add-on. Yet, for the MS Word Add-in, you have to click the Grammarly button to activate the app. Grammarly explains all detected issues via an Error Card that contains relevant information for each item. You can implement it by clicking the suggestion, ‘Ignore’ the problem, or ‘Add to Dictionary’ (in case of a spelling issue). You can also provide feedback (if you think that the suggestion is wrong). The Free version checks only for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. The Premium version also reveals a ton of advanced ‘Clarity Issues.’

The Tone Detector helps you estimate the entire document’s tone, which can be valuable for many writers who target a particular audience, e.g., formal writing for the business audience.

Limitations of Grammarly (For Beginners)

Grammarly, overall, excels at almost all the things it does, and therefore the free version is recommended for everyone. Grammarly provides a generic readability score. Advanced grammar checks like the clarity checker, the plagiarism checker, and many other features are not available for the free version.

Grammarly is dominant amongst its competition, but it doesn’t solve all English language problems. It is useful at picking syntactic mistakes but still misses significant semantic errors, which can be a problem for people who are not particularly adept at English — as they won’t notice these slips.

The Good The Bad & The Ugly
Ease of use – simple, intuitive, and efficient interface English language only Tad expensive (notably the monthly subscription at $29.95 per month)
Context-based grammar checking Not 100% accurate (primarily misses linguistic bloopers) No free trial for the premium version.
Fantastic grammar checker Business account starts at three users and charges per number of users (can be a bit expensive for small businesses) Only one account (license) for the premium version. You can use it on up to five devices.
Convenient tone detector Insufficient as a standalone tool (doesn’t do everything) Incomplete sentences can sometimes go undetected
The insightful error cards are instructional and productive (they help you to improve your writing) Unlike ProWritingAid and Hemmingway Editor, it doesn’t provide much information about the whole passage, Grammarly’s scoring is generic right now No substitutes are suggested in many cases. Example: synonyms, rephrasing suggestions for the intricate text, etc.
Integrates well with MS Word, Outlook, WordPress, emails, social media, and millions of websites The free version is limited to fundamental grammar and spelling mistakes Cannot determine contextually incorrect sentences (it cannot perceive the meaning of the written document)
Knowledge-base The premium version identifies repeated words but sometimes doesn’t provide a suitable alternative to use Short on vocabulary suggestions (not as competent as the free thesaurus writing tool)
The Grammarly keyboard is available for Android & iOS for FREE Free version shows the number of advanced clarity mistakes but doesn’t tell you what those mistakes are and where they are The formatting tool is rudimentary. You have to write in another text editor and then import it to the Grammarly Editor to format your writing accurately
Personal dictionary Google Docs is not supported yet (in Beta). Restricted to English only, and it also doesn’t translate other languages as Ginger does.
The adjust goal option allows you to customize Grammarly’s feedback. It can miss simple semantic issues, which sometimes can be caught by text editors like Google Docs and MS Word.
Formatting remains the same if you import/upload a document, but it changes if you copy/paste. Plagiarism Detector is not available for the free version.
Weekly writing stats (sent to user email) can help you identify your problem areas The browser extension can malfunction, i.e., opening and closing the Grammarly editor within a website (sometimes) duplicates the content
Option to download the detailed performance statistics as a PDF Sometimes Grammarly doesn’t catch all mistakes on the first try. You have to refresh or scroll to let it run again and see if it finds new issues
Grammarly blog teaches English grammar rules, writing techniques, and more
Context-based checker is more accurate than competitors
Provides rephrasing suggestions for complicated sentences
The premium version excels at catching inconsistencies

Who Should Use Grammarly?

Free:

Everyone

Despite being limited, Grammarly (free version) is a phenomenal tool. Therefore, I would heartily recommend it to everyone. It’s free, and it’s convenient.

The free version should be everyone’s go-to tool for proofreading social media statuses, tweets, and comments. It is also crucial for editing all sorts of short-form writing, such as emails. Professional writers can also use the free version to catch typos and basic grammar mistakes.

Premium:

  • Professional Writers
  • Authors
  • Bloggers
  • Students
  • Businesses that require extensive writing
  • Marketers/Advertisers
  • Content Creators
  • Editors and Proofreaders

Apart from all the necessary features offered in the Grammarly free version, Grammarly Premium provides several other valuable elements such as an advanced clarity checker and a robust plagiarism checker. All these help you enhance your writing effectively.

Grammarly Premium is a helpful tool for people who are already adept at English as it still requires plenty of work on catching semantic errors. Businesses and Professional writers who do intensive writing should give the Premium version a go. From writing, editing, and proofreading to plagiarism checking, it is almost an All-in-One solution (though not a substitute for a human proofreader – at least yet).

Who Shouldn’t Use Grammarly?

Free:

  • Students
  • English Learners

People, especially students who cannot learn from their mistakes, should avoid relying on Grammarly as it can hinder their learning process.

Granted, Instructional Error Cards and Weekly Writing Stats (emailed to the user) can pinpoint your weak points, but educating yourself from there on is entirely up to you.

Just like ‘Auto-correct’ hinders people’s ability to learn proper spellings, Grammarly can do that for learning grammar rules.

Premium:

  • Amateur Writers
  • Infrequent Users

Grammarly is an excellent tool, but it still makes slips, which can be misleading for amateurs who don’t have a solid grip on the English language. Therefore, if you are not proficient enough in English, you should only subscribe to Grammarly Premium if you can remember that it is not a replacement for a human teacher or a proofreader. Or, you can continue using the Free version, which is competent enough to check fundamental grammar and spelling oversights.

Furthermore, businesses and professionals who are infrequent users can stick to the Free version if they feel they will not be making the most of the Premium version.

Grammarly vs. Basic Text Editors

A comparison with basic text editors will illustrate Grammarly’s true potential:

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is the most popular and feature-packed text editor. It includes a basic grammar and spelling checker that catches typos in real-time. However, MS Word is very limited in its grammar checking capabilities.

I’ve written many articles using Microsoft Word, which were considered error-free by the text editor. However, when I put the same documents in Grammarly’s Editor, there’d always be some critical mistakes caught by the Free version and some clarity or consistency mistakes pointed out by the Premium version.

Grammarly finds inconsistent punctuation that MS Word missed.

Google Docs

Google Docs is another mighty text editor, which is free to use. It also has numerous features, including spelling and grammar checking. Google Docs’ grammar and spelling check software only flag issues with an alternative in its database; otherwise, it ignores them. It auto-corrects the obvious spelling blunders. It can also pick missing determiners (articles) better than Microsoft Word. However, once again, when compared to Grammarly, Google Docs falls far behind in exposing slip-ups.

Grammarly in Google Docs.

Google Docs performs a little better than MS Word when it comes to punctuation, yet it is incomparable to Grammarly, which is in Beta for Google Docs.

How to Write Better With Grammarly

Grammarly proofreads content written in English (American, British, Australian, and Canadian) and gives detailed performance statistics. Weekly Writing Statistics are emailed to the user account, and you can download a complete PDF that extensively illustrates your performance.

From scoring to pointing out all mistakes and amendments, Grammarly doles out a comprehensive document that you can use to improve your weak areas. Grammarly can function as your teacher in this regard if you learn from these mistakes and try to improve your performance, especially in areas pointed out by the software.

Try Grammarly for yourself.

All Grammarly Products

Grammarly is available in the following product versions:

  1. Grammarly for Business (3 or more users)
  2. Grammarly @edu (for Educational Organizations/Institutes)
  3. Grammarly Premium
  4. Grammarly Free

All these versions are usable in the following product forms:

1. Online Editor

Grammarly’s web application acts as an online editor to upload a document, copy/paste content, or write directly. It has a 4MB size-limit and a 100,000 characters-limit (about 60 pages). When you upload a file, a pop-up tells you that your document formatting will restore when downloaded.

Grammarly’s interface for the online version and the desktop app is identical, and it is outstandingly intuitive and accessible. A dedicated writing assistant panel on the right side contains valuable information and choosable options. It also lists and categorizes all the errors found.

A bar at the bottom contains a few formatting options and some length-related info about the passage.

2. Browser Extension

Typing in any online text editor activates the ’Grammar and Spelling Checker’ when the extension is on. It underlines (in red) all the issues in real-time. Hovering over the problem pops up an Error Card that contains corrections and more information about the mistake.

You can use the Grammarly icon at the bottom-right of online text editors to activate or deactivate the tool. This option is beneficial because sometimes you want to check your content but don’t want distractions while writing. I recommend turning on the extension after you have completed your draft and now want to begin the editing phase. You can also open the Grammarly editor within a website for added convenience.

The Grammarly add-on is available on all popular browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge Chromium, etc. And it is compatible with millions of websites and the web versions of many desktop applications, including WordPress, emails, social media, work platforms, and many more. Grammarly for Google Docs is in Beta right now. The Grammarly extension also gives you the option to ’Show Definitions and Synonyms via Double Click,’ which works like a dictionary within any website.

The Grammarly icon within your text editors tells you the total number of issues found on the Grammarly pop-up. However, you have to scroll through the document and find those problems yourself. It is not as efficient as the online Editor. The extension only shows the critical issues inside your online editor. It gives you the option to open the online Grammarly Editor to see the errors pointed out by the Premium version. The browser extension also works slower for lengthy content. It is convenient but only for short-form writing.

3. Desktop Application

The desktop application, like all other products, is online only and doesn’t work offline. An internet connection is necessary as Grammarly uses its database to process the document. The desktop app is identical to the online editor.

4. Microsoft Word/Outlook Add-in

You can integrate Grammarly into Microsoft Word and Outlook through their Add-in. Unlike other Grammarly product forms, the MS Word Add-in activates when clicked — otherwise, it stays dormant. When enabled, a right panel appears with suggestions, Error Cards, and statistics, just like the Online Editor and the Desktop App. Grammarly has no character limit for the MS Word Add-in.

5. The Grammarly Keyboard App

You can download Grammarly Keyboard for both Android and iOS through their respective stores. Now available for iPad as well, it is easy to use as it works like the auto-correct feature available in the smart devices. It gives suggestions when Grammarly encounters any grammar or spelling lapses.

Grammarly Pricing Plans

Grammarly is a tad expensive when purchased as a monthly subscription, which costs $29.95 per month. The quarterly ($59.95) and annual ($139.95) subscriptions offer better value for money. Through its weekly newsletter and other channels, Grammarly presents discount offers to its free users from time to time, which you can avail yourself of to get an even cheaper deal for the Grammarly Premium subscription.

Grammarly Pricing Plans for Premium Version – Monthly, Quarterly, Annual

Free

Grammarly Free is limited but still adequate for many as it gives you critical grammar and spelling checking capabilities. It is usable in all product forms.

Premium

Grammarly Premium, along with Spelling and Grammar Checker, offers an advanced Clarity Checker, Plagiarism Checker, and experimental Tone Detector. All Grammarly features are available for the Premium version.

Business

Grammarly for Business offers all the Premium features for three or more users. It also gives you an admin panel to customize your experience. You can add a personal dictionary, among other things, which will be accessible to all users. Grammarly for Business includes:

  • Individual accounts
  • Admin panel
  • Centralized billing
  • Team usage stats
  • Priority email support
  • Single sign-on

Grammarly Business Pricing Example

Grammarly @Edu

Grammarly @Edu is also an available option, of which educational institutes and organizations can avail themselves. It caters to a large number of accounts, as it targets students.

Grammarly Features

UI

Grammarly has hands-down the best interface among all the writing assistants. It is incredibly intuitive and user-friendly.

Compatibility

Grammarly integrates with millions of sites and text editors. It is also compatible with MS Word (both for Windows and Mac) and Outlook via an Add-in. It is still in Beta for Google Docs.

Grammarly is incompatible with some desktop apps, but you can use Grammarly in their web versions.

Supported Document Formats

For products where you can upload text documents, the supported document formats are: .docx, .rtf, .odt, .txt.

Languages

Grammarly is restricted to English only, including American, British, Canadian, and Australian English. Grammarly doesn’t support foreign language phrases, translation, etc., at the moment.

Grammarly Functions

Spelling Checker

Grammarly checks for spelling mistakes based on context. It is excellent at differentiating between commonly misspelled words. It can also tell Common and Proper Nouns apart (in most cases).

Grammar Checker

All Grammarly products on all plans help you check for grammatical errors and syntax issues in the provided document in real-time.

Plagiarism Checker

The Plagiarism Checker is not available for the free version. When I inquired about plagiarism in hard copy, patch plagiarism, and ProQuest, here’s what Grammarly Support had to say:

“We teamed up with ProQuest to provide even more accurate plagiarism checks: currently, Grammarly’s plagiarism checker searches major proprietary databases along with over 16 billion web pages. You can check ProQuest libraries here http://www.proquest.com/libraries/academic/databases/.

Please note that Grammarly catches verbatim plagiarism and slightly modified text that can be classified as unoriginal. As comprehensive as our algorithms are, significantly rephrased text oftentimes can’t be traced back to its source.”

Note: I checked this document with both; Grammarly Plagiarism Checker is not as robust as Copyscape, but it’s catching up fast.

Tone Detector

It detects a variety of tones based on the context of the given passage.

Grammarly Tone Detector

Clarity Checker

Grammarly checks for advanced issues for the Premium, Education, and Business versions. The Free version checks for limited conciseness; the rest is available on the Premium version only.

Grammarly Support

Grammarly offers support via its extensive, well-written, and user-oriented knowledge-base. Grammarly also provides support via email (24/7 for the Business version) if you can’t find a relevant answer in the knowledge-base.

Moreover, the Grammarly Blog teaches, among other useful things, the proper use of grammar in English.

Grammarly Blog

The Grammarly Blog teaches the rules of English grammar and gives tips on writing. It also specializes in teaching about the most common blunders, which are also a strong suit of the application.

Detailed Performance Statistics

You can view the ‘Statistics Summary Card’ by clicking the ‘See Performance’ button. Or you can download the detailed statistics via the Download PDF Report option. These statistics are in-depth and contain exhaustive information regarding the whole document, including your score, errors, reading time, speaking time, and more.

Grammarly Performance Stats

Adjust Goals

You can customize Grammarly’s feedback according to your needs. This option gives you an adjustable chart where you can set your preferences according to your needs. It helps with the document’s tone, the difficulty level depending on the target audience, and more.

Grammarly Adjust Goals

Get Expert Writing Help

Grammarly gives you the option to get your work checked by experts. It’s a particularly convenient option for those who cannot or do not want to rely on their proofreading skills better than finding and hiring someone yourself.

Grammarly Expert Writing Help

Is Grammarly Really Free to Use?

Grammarly has a free version with a powerful-enough spelling and grammar checker. It is available in all product forms – Online Editor, Browser Extension, Desktop Application, and Word Add-in. The Free version checks for up to 150 grammar rules.

It is superb at uncovering elementary grammar fallacies due to its context-based checking, powered by its robust AI and NLP software.

The Free version doesn’t show clarity issues. It reveals the number of clarity issues in the content, but it doesn’t tell you what and where those issues are.

Is Grammarly Premium Worth The Cost?

The Premium version shows advanced grammar issues such as clarity, conciseness, dangling modifiers, squinting modifiers, monotonous sentences, intricate text, split infinitives, and many more. It checks for over 400 rules of English grammar, far more than the Free version. Grammarly Premium also has a plagiarism checker within the interface, which is mighty-enough for online plagiarism checking.

Grammar Checks

When you run some text through any version and product form of the app, Grammarly will process the document for the following:

  1. Sensitivity
  2. Determiners
  3. Voice
  4. Conciseness
  5. Conjunctions
  6. References
  7. Nouns
  8. Fluency
  9. Word order
  10. Spelling
  11. Conventions
  12. Syntax
  13. Variety
  14. Formality
  15. Pronouns
  16. Prepositions
  17. Verbs
  18. Numerals
  19. Punctuation
  20. Modifiers
  21. Consistency
  22. Correctness
  23. Clarity
  24. Delivery
  25. Readability
  26. Engagement

However, Grammarly will not point out many of these mistakes for the Free version. It will only tell you the number of such problems in your content.

Grammarly Checklist

Grammarly Free in Action:

Let’s see some examples.

Verbs

Grammarly detecting the wrong form of a verb.

Context-Based Checking

Grammarly Context-Based Checking

Capitalized Words

Grammarly detects unknown words, and if you capitalize them, it considers them proper nouns. It can also miss the incorrect use of a term if you spell it correctly and put it within commas.

Grammarly while dealing with proper nouns, capitalization, and unknown words

Phrases vs. Sentences

Grammarly can differentiate between phrases and sentences. Therefore, you can write headings and subheadings in the form of expression.

Grammarly differentiating between sentences and phrases

Multiple Mistakes in One Sentence

Grammarly catching multiple mistakes in one sentence

Determiners

Grammarly pointing out the wrong determiner-article use

Incomplete Sentences

The Grammarly algorithm is not good enough yet at recognizing incomplete sentences. Grammarly is far from perfect, as evident from these examples. Google Docs suggested ’was because’ for the last line instead of ’is because,’ but Grammarly missed that.

Grammarly can miss incomplete sentences.

Grammarly is only making one suggestion that the article use may be incorrect here in the below image.

Cannot detect incomplete sentences (sometimes) if other issues exist

Grammarly suggests you change the first line in the below image because it believes it’s caught a sentence fragment. You accept the suggestion, and it becomes the second line, which is, again, a sentence fragment, according to Grammarly.

Grammarly ‘sentence fragment’ suggestions

Sometimes, the suggestions are right as well.

Grammarly recognizes sentence fragments in some cases

Punctuation

Comma

Grammarly is a sniffing-hound-on-steroids when it comes to commas — both missing and wrong ones. It pinpoints the exact location where you should place a comma in a sentence. Whether it is between clauses, a list of items, or something else, Grammarly knows if you have missed a comma or placed a wrong one. It also exposes the famous “Oxford Comma.” Grammarly now points out any inconsistent punctuation (curly vs. straight commas, for example) in your articles.

Grammarly pointing out the missing Oxford Comma

Hyphen

First, it points out the missing hyphen. Once you rectify the error, it points out the wrong capitalization. Grammarly works in steps for multiple errors in a sentence.

Grammarly catching a missing hyphen.

Semi-colon & Colon

Grammarly catches the incorrect use of the semi-colon & colon.

Period

Grammarly points out a missing period

Missing Apostrophes

Grammarly can catch missing apostrophes

Grammarly Premium in Action:

Apart from correctness that checks for critical grammar mistakes, the Premium version has options to check for clarity, delivery, and engagement, along with many more correctness checks.

Clarity

Clarity check is not available for the Free version; all other versions of the app have it. It catches linguistic issues that a fundamental grammar checker cannot reveal. These include dangling modifiers, split infinitives, misuse of passive voice, intricate text, inappropriate colloquialisms, etc.

Text Inconsistencies

Grammarly Premium can detect inconsistencies and gives you the option to select one form if a word has been used inconsistently in the same document. It can also detect inconsistent punctuation, for example, curly and straight commas.

Grammarly Premium identifies text inconsistencies.

Rephrasing Suggestions

For unclear or complicated sentences where there might be an issue of a dangling modifier or something else, Grammarly suggests an alternative way to write the same sentence.

Grammarly Premium giving rephrasing suggestions

Wordy Sentences

Grammarly can also note if you have used many unnecessary words in a sentence. If there are more words and less content in a sentence, then it suggests you rephrase it. This option can help you make your content non-fluff.

Passive Voice Misuse

Grammarly is so-so at deciphering when the passive voice is right to use and when you should avoid it in a sentence. My experience is that, more often than not, it will recommend that you rewrite a sentence if it detects passive voice use anywhere.

Grammarly – always – detects passive voice use.

Intricate Text

Grammarly exposes unclear and hard-to-follow sentences in the written piece. Sometimes it gives alternatives (if one is available in its database), but usually, it only tells you to rephrase the sentence to make it more understandable.

Monotonous Sentences

If you continuously write similar sentences in a passage, Grammarly will detect these sentences’ monotonous nature and advise you to rephrase them.

Grammarly detecting a monotonous passage

Sound Confident Suggestion

Grammarly suggesting alternatives to sound confident

Politeness Suggestion

Sound more diplomatic with Grammarly!

Delivery

Grammarly Premium catches informal sentence structure like a preposition at the end of a sentence. Some other informalities include inappropriate colloquialisms, split infinitives, etc.

Grammarly points out informality.

Engagement

Grammarly Premium points out overused words and suggests using an alternative here, but sometimes it doesn’t provide suitable options like the Thesaurus Writing Tool.

Grammarly suggesting engaging alternatives

Most of the time, the suggestions are worth considering, though.

Grammarly is suggesting more engaging alternatives

Grammarly Free vs. Grammarly Premium

The Grammarly Free version catches all critical issues as it checks for 150 Grammar Rules to determine errors in a document. The Premium version looks for over 400 Grammar Rules and detects far more problems than the Free version.

I wrote an article and checked it through both the Free and the Premium versions. Here is the difference between how the stats of both look like before making the suggested changes:

Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Free)

Original Stats (before checking with Grammarly Premium)

After editing another article and making the suggested changes, here’s how the Free version stats look like:

Grammarly Free Stats

After editing the same article using the Premium version, the stats look like the following:

Grammarly Premium Stats

Grammarly vs. Human Proofreader

Grammarly is a marvelous tool, but it is incomparable to human proofreading. Grammarly cannot detect the sense and meaning of the written text. It catches blunders using English language and grammar rules as efficiently as a machine can. However, some mistakes can slip through Grammarly if there is no syntax error, but just a linguistic or semantic misuse.

Grammarly didn’t suggest anything for a nonsense sentence

Grammarly is not an alternative to human proofreading

Pros of using Grammarly in 2021

Context-Based Grammar Checker

Grammarly is evolving with time and has gotten pretty accurate in identifying common mistakes. Its extensive database helps Grammarly recognize errors based on the context.

Real-Time Grammar and Spelling Checker

Grammarly scours the whole text for errors when you provide it a written document. Thankfully, it also checks for blunders as you write or edit your text in any product form – Chrome Extension, Online Editor, Word Add-in, Desktop App (Windows and Mac), and the Grammarly Keyboard for iOS and Android.

Accessible Interface and Robust Editing

With Grammarly, you get a highly-efficient software, which is not only a phenomenal editor but also incredibly easy to use.

Customizations – Set Goals and Personal Dictionary

You can customize your Set Goals and your Personal Dictionary with the ‘Add to Dictionary’ feature in the Error Cards. This element is convenient for proper nouns and personal vocabulary (even words from a different language).

Tone Detector

Based on your Goals, Grammarly, through its tone detector emojis, cautions you of your tone – the vocabulary and phrasing you are using. You can adjust goals keeping in mind your target audience and choose the most appropriate words to use.

Clarity Checker

Apart from basic grammatical mistakes, Grammarly helps you fix linguistic oversights. It tracks down a wide range of slip-ups, including dangling modifiers, intricate text, split infinitives, passive voice misuse, redundancies, and many other slips. In essence, the Clarity Checker elevates the level of your writing.

Plagiarism Checker

It is a bonus in all senses of the word. It might not be essential to the app, but it certainly assists users. Grammarly plagiarism checker is not the absolute best in the industry, but it does the job swiftly. It checks plagiarism across 16 billion pages on the internet and ProQuest’s database.

Error Cards

Error cards are compact, simple, and instructional. They serve their purpose elegantly. Any shortcoming that you experience in Grammarly’s usage so far is due to its still-not-so-extensive database. Error cards also fall short when it comes to giving suggestions due to this very reason. Otherwise, they are usually handy.

Free Version

You can proofread, remove typos, and analyze the content quickly via the app’s free version. You can also use it before buying the Grammarly Premium subscription.

The Grammarly Keyboard

Supported on both Android and iOS, The Grammarly Keyboard App functions like the auto-correct feature. It gives real-time suggestions about the proper use of grammar and spellings in the written text. Grammarly is now available for iPad and supports hardware keyboards as well.

Grammarly Support

Grammarly provides customer support via its extensive database and email. By now, almost all popular queries have a database entry. Furthermore, the Grammarly Blog assists with learning English grammar rules.

Knowledge-base

Grammarly has amassed a plethora of information in its database, which helps run the application smoothly. This knowledge allows the app to identify problems based on the context. You will find accurate solutions for most common issues, thanks to its extensive database growing with time.

Grammarly Blog

The Grammarly Blog focuses on teaching people English grammar rules and common mistakes in their writing. There are dedicated articles for each item; separate sections cover different punctuation like Commas, Hyphens, etc.

Writing Stats

The weekly writing stats sent via email and the downloadable detailed performance stats PDF give you comprehensive feedback on your writing. This feature helps you pinpoint your mistakes better than anything else available in the market.

Insights

Grammarly Insights are the real-time feedback that the application provides regarding your writing. It bases it on your Set Goals. You can customize this feedback according to your needs, which can be amazingly valuable if you cover different audiences. Insights also include the reading time and speaking time, which is particularly useful to Vloggers, YouTubers, etc., who can quickly determine how much time their script will take on the video.

Reliability

Grammarly is the most popular and best-in-class digital writing assistant tool, growing exponentially both in features and number of users, indicating that it will provide the best services to its customer base.

Grammarly is notably popular among professional writers, bloggers, publishers, marketers, and businesses, showing that Grammarly has a demanding clientele to please. Therefore, their standards are supposed to be (and they are) higher than the competition.

Product Investment

Having more than a million downloads per month and being a top-1000 website by traffic globally, Grammarly has raised $200M in total funding at a valuation of $1B+ so far, which speaks volumes of its success, investors’ trust in the product, and its projections.

Cons of using Grammarly in 2021

Free Version is Limited

The Free version identifies only critical grammatical errors, typos, and limited ‘conciseness.’ Moreover, it only lists the number of total advanced clarity issues in the text with an ‘Ad’ that keeps asking you to buy a Premium subscription for these issues. It also doesn’t support plagiarism checking.

Premium Version is a Tad Expensive

The biggest drawback of Grammarly is that it is a tad expensive for many. Grammarly Premium can be a costly subscription at $30 per month if you don’t have much writing to proofread.

Semantic Issues

Grammarly is good at picking fundamental grammar mistakes – even context-based grammar issues, but it still cannot understand what you have written. If you write a nonsense sentence with no grammatical fault, Grammarly will consider it a correct sentence. It can also happen with incomplete sentences.

Insufficient

Grammarly is a mighty grammar checker but lags behind when it comes to rating the whole document. Its scoring is based on mistakes and length of words and sentences only, unlike some other tools that provide a more comprehensive text scoring. Grammarly is also not an alternative to human proofreading as it can’t understand the meaning of the written content.

Limited Vocabulary

Grammarly has a limited vocabulary in its database so far, which leads to inaccurate synonym suggestions at times. The Thesaurus Writing Tool, another free digital writing assistant, has an extensive vocabulary due to its vast Thesaurus.com database and offers far more vocabulary suggestions and alternatives.

Alternatives Not Provided for Every Issue

For many suggestions like Intricate Text, Split Infinitives, etc., Grammarly doesn’t provide an alternative. You have to rephrase the sentence yourself. Grammarly only points out bloopers sometimes, which can be a little frustrating for amateur writers.

Not Supported Everywhere

Grammarly is not supported everywhere yet. The most prominent places are Google Docs (in Beta at the moment – which doesn’t include Grammarly Premium corrections and the Pop-up Grammarly Editor) and desktop applications. However, it works on the web versions of these desktop applications via its browser extension.

Insufficient Formatting Options in the Editor

Grammarly Editor is imperfect for writing purposes. It is incomparable to authoritative text editors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. So you have to write your text in another editor and import it in Grammarly for proofreading if you want proper formatting of your document.

Irritating and Aggressive Advertising

Grammarly wants you to upgrade all the time. When using the Free version, you’ll get constant notifications to upgrade to Premium to check for issues that are not available in the Free version.

Only One Language Supported

Grammarly doesn’t offer support for languages other than English. There is also no option available for translation like Ginger.

Only One Account for Premium

The Grammarly Premium account gives you only one license for use on up to five devices. It is an obstacle for people with multiple accounts for different purposes. Grammarly Premium is already expensive, so buying two licenses is not feasible for the majority.

Top 5 Free Grammarly Alternatives 2021

Grammarly stands out as the most prominent and well-received tool when you compare all popular digital writing assistants. It has been endorsed and appreciated by countless publishers and writers. Grammarly has become a top product in the digital writing industry with its robust marketing and significant NLP and AI improvements.

Grammarly Inc. has secured enough funding as of late 2019 to improve its natural language learning database to enhance its AI-based application further. Keeping all this in mind, it is evident that Grammarly is dominating the market. Still, there are a few products that come close for one reason or the other. Here are the top 5 Grammarly alternatives in 2021:

ProWritingAid

Pros: Long-Form Writing (Books, etc.), Writing Insights, Separate Checking of Issues, MS Word Add-in, Efficient Browser Extension

Cons: Short-Form Writing, Fewer Errors Detected, Not for Amateurs, No Free Version

ProWritingAid is considered a worthy alternative to Grammarly (notably for long-form writing – books, etc.), but it falls far behind Grammarly for short-form writing.

ProWritingAid is accurate, feature-rich, and integrates well with apps and websites, but the interface is not as user-friendly as Grammarly’s. It also reveals fewer issues as Grammarly has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities.

ProWritingAid offers better pricing and value for money (Premium is $60 per year, $70 with Plagiarism Checker), and it also has a Lifetime Plan. However, it doesn’t have a free plan like Grammarly. The Online Editor has no word limit, unlike Grammarly’s 60-pages or 100,000 character limit.

ProWritingAid provides many options/tabs to check for each issue separately, handy for longer articles or books. However, it is not as user-friendly for short writing pieces.

It also presents a better analysis of the whole document and provides a lot of information regarding your writing, which you can use to improve your writing style.

ProWritingAid has an easy-to-scroll-through panel at the right-side that contains corrections and suggestions, which you can use to see all issues without scrolling the entire document.

ProWritingAid has the following tabs to check for each issue separately:

  • Grammar
  • Spelling
  • Overused
  • Readability
  • Cliche
  • Sticky
  • Diction
  • All Repeats
  • Echoes
  • Thesaurus
  • Dialogue
  • Consistency
  • Pacing
  • Pronouns
  • Alliterations
  • Homonyms
  • Transition
  • Acronym

Ginger

Pros: Keeps Formatting, 60 Languages & Translation, Built-in Dictionary, Browser Extension, Free Version

Cons: Fewer Issues Detected, Fewer Insights, Interface is just OK, no MS Word plugin

Ginger is also a notable competitor of Grammarly. It has a free version, and it integrates well with different websites. However, it doesn’t have an MS Word plugin. It is also not as accessible due to its clunky interface.

Ginger is not as powerful as Grammarly, but it is still a decent alternative. Ginger’s annual subscription is $89.88 (cheaper than Grammarly’s).

Ginger keeps the original formatting of the text document, which is pleasant. It also has a Translator within the app that supports 60 languages. Also, there’s a built-in dictionary, which you can use to find alternatives to overused words.

WhiteSmoke

Pros: Cheap, Integrates with Platforms, Gimmicks – i.e., Templates, etc.

Cons: Interface is awful, Fewer Mistakes Caught

WhiteSmoke is cheap to use, but it has a horrible interface. It integrates with many platforms, but it is incomparable to an advanced tool like Grammarly. It has some useful gimmicks like templates for specific writing purposes, i.e., Sorry, Thank You, Condolences, etc.

The annual subscription of WhiteSmoke costs $79.99. However, it is not advanced enough to be considered better value for money.

Thesaurus Writing Tool

Pros: Free, Vocabulary suggestions on hovering the cursor over a word, Blog

Cons: Editor is dreadful to use, Ruins Formatting

Thesaurus Writing Tool is a free-to-use online text editor powered by Thesaurus.com. You can copy/paste or write directly in the Editor. It doesn’t retain the original formatting, which makes it a bit uncomfortable to use. Just click on the ‘Check for Grammar’ button, and it will work its magic. It also has a dedicated blog that teaches you how to write better.

The Thesaurus Writing Tool is unimpressive when checking grammatical errors, but it is highly potent in vocabulary suggestions. Its interface is simple but insufficient. Hover over any word, and it will show you a vocabulary card with a lot of synonyms. Clicking on any suggestion will replace the original term with the selected item. The replaced word gets a yellow underline. An undo option is available if you are not happy with your word selection.

Hemingway App

Pros: Free, Information about Text, Text Readability Score

Cons: Ruins Formatting, Fewer Mistakes Caught

Hemingway App is yet another incredible tool that is quite capable and straight-forward. It is convenient for analyzing your document as it scores the content based on its readability. It has a free web app and a paid desktop app. You can copy/paste into the online Editor or write directly, but it messes up the formatting.

Hemingway App identifies the use of passive voice, adverbs, and difficulty of reading. It recognizes long sentences – even the easy-to-read ones – as complex, which affects the document’s grade.

Final Verdict: Grammarly Review 2021

Using advanced NLP and AI, Grammarly free is hands-down the best and must-have writing, editing, and proofreading tool for everyone that checks for spelling and critical grammar mistakes. Easy to use, compatible with most popular products, and trusted by millions of users, Grammarly instantly elevates your writing everywhere; statuses, comments, emails, documents, tweets, you name it! Trying out the free version before upgrading to a premium plan also makes sense.

Grammarly Premium is a more robust and advanced tool with numerous amazing features like an advanced clarity checker, tone detector, and plagiarism checker. The Premium version is unparalleled when complemented with knowledge of the English language and some other tools. However, it is insufficient as a standalone tool because it can make slips (especially semantic ones).

I highly recommend Grammarly Premium to professionals (freelancers, writers, bloggers, authors, publishers, and editors) who require intensive use of the app. Similarly, Grammarly for Business is a good investment if your team does intensive writing. Non-intensive users should stick to the Free version as it suffices.

Aa one user said, “Grammarly Premium helps you sound like a pro, or at least helps you avoid looking like a fool!”

FAQs About Grammarly

Is Grammarly a good app?

Yes, Grammarly stands out among its competitors as it has advanced context-based grammar checking capabilities, thanks to its up-to-date natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

Is Grammarly Premium worth it?

Yes, for the most part. However, it is a tad expensive for many. It is suitable for professionals and businesses that have lots of writing needs. It identifies several advanced grammar issues that the Free version only counts. However, it is not a substitute for human proofreading as it can make linguistic mistakes that a human can easily find.

Is Grammarly supported in Google Docs?

It is in Beta at the moment. So, it should be available shortly. At the moment, it is imperfect as it only specifies the number of errors. You have to scroll the document to find those mistakes (underlined red) on your own. It has already started working in the comments, though.

Is Grammarly supported in Quora?

Yes, Grammarly works with Quora.

Is Grammarly supported in Medium?

Yes, Grammarly is available for Medium.

Can Grammarly replace a professional editor?

No, it can’t. Grammarly can make simple semantic mistakes because it doesn’t know the meaning of the written text, so it cannot replace a professional editor. It is only suitable for catching syntactic issues.

Is Grammarly supported in Microsoft Word?

Yes, a plugin is available. It is an efficient plugin as it gives similar options in Microsoft Word as it does in its online editor and desktop application. Grammarly is now available for both Windows and macOS versions of MS Word.

Is Grammarly available for Mac?

Yes, Grammarly’s desktop app is available for macOS. Grammarly is available for both Windows and macOS. Grammarly for MS Word is also available for Mac now.

Is Grammarly supported in WordPress?

Yes, it is supported. You can use Grammarly in WordPress via its browser extension.

Is Grammarly supported in Gmail?

Yes, it is. You can edit your email using the Grammarly browser extension within Gmail. However, it is not the best solution for lengthy content. For extended text, the Online Editor, the Desktop App, and the MS Word Add-in are better options.

Does Grammarly work offline?

No, it doesn’t. Grammarly uses its database to run the app, so an internet connection is necessary.

Does Grammarly help you improve your writing?

Yes. If you read the weekly stats, detailed performance stats PDF, and Grammarly Blog for grammar rules and writing tips and try to implement them in your writing, Grammarly can significantly improve your writing capabilities.

Is Grammarly Safe and Secure?

Yes, Grammarly is quite safe, as Google verifies it. Moreover, Grammarly is as secure as any other site that uses SSL/TLS encryption. It is also reliable for plagiarism checking as it doesn’t violate your privacy.

What is the Grammarly cancellation refund policy?

You can get your money back if you are not satisfied with the Premium subscription by contacting Grammarly support within ten days.

Is Grammarly a reliable checker?

Yes, Grammarly outperforms its competitors. Yet, it cannot surpass a professional human editor.

Is Grammarly available for Android/iOS?

Yes, it is. You can use the Grammarly Keyboard to edit your text for grammar and spelling errors by installing the Grammarly Keyboard app from the Play Store or the App Store. It works like the auto-correct feature. Grammarly is now available on iPad as well.

Check out Grammarly for yourself.

 

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Illustration is a big trend in 2021. Every designer should have some ability to illustrate, whether that’s producing icons, creating lettering, mocking up layouts, or crafting full-blown illustrations.

Designers’ workflows are as varied as their work, and one designer’s favorite tool is a frustrating mess to the next designer. Most design apps have a free trial, so it’s worth trying out a few before committing.

Counting down to the best illustration app for designers in 2021, all of the apps on this list are worthy of at least a second glance:

10. Vectr

Vectr is a simple vector design tool. It is heavily geared towards layout and even product design. It’s difficult to use it for many illustration jobs, but simple icon and UI creation are possible. It scrapes into our top ten thanks to the fact that it’s free to use.

9. Paper

Paper is a sketching app developed by WeTransfer. It grabs number nine in our top ten thanks to its simplified interface that is perfect for generating ideas. It may not be the most flexible app, but it’s free to download, making illustration accessible to anyone with an iOS device.

8. Inkscape

We love the fact that there’s someone out there producing a professional-grade artwork app for free. Inkscape is available for GNU/Linux, Windows, and macOS. If you’re interested in exploring this design area without signing up for a subscription or buying an iPad, Inkscape is a great place to start.

7. Assembly

Assembly is another app that’s dependent on the transition of illustrators from desktop machines to mobile devices and is available for iOS. Assembly does things a little differently; instead of manipulating boolean curves, Assembly builds illustrations out of shapes. If you’re someone who thinks they can’t draw (spoiler alert: everyone can draw), this is the app for you.

6. Sketch

It’s a shock low-rating for Sketch, the highly popular product design app doesn’t make it out of the bottom half of our list. The reason for the lower ranking? Sketch is an incredible design app, but its greater investment in prototyping features has come at the cost of drawing innovation. It’s still a great choice for crisp icon design, but it’s not flexible enough to take a higher spot in our list.

5. CorelDRAW

If you’re getting the impression that design apps are mostly for macOS or iOS, then you’d not be alone. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is one of the few that began its life on Windows before being rebuilt for Mac. CorelDRAW is a premium option, but like Adobe’s offering, it is a suite of tools that cover everything you’ll need to create any form of design work you could ever need.

4. Vectornator

Moving closer to the top spot, Vectornator is an up-and-coming tool. Like many other apps further up our chart, Vectornator does a lot more than simply illustration. Its underlying tools provide a solid foundation for a flexible set of tools that you can use for any artwork. Vectornator does an awful lot, awfully well. 

3. Procreate

Procreate is one of the finest apps on this list, thanks in main to its incredible brush studio; being able to edit the marks you make is essential for any expressive artwork. Procreate enables expressive illustration, typography, and simple sketches. The only downside to this app is that it’s iOS only; if available on more platforms, it might have been even further up the list.

2. Adobe Illustrator

That’s right; we don’t think design giant Adobe’s illustration app Illustrator is worthy of the number one spot.

Illustrator is an excellent tool and arguably deserves to be considered Adobe’s flagship product. Since Adobe relented and allowed individual app subscriptions, it is also reasonably priced. It does everything you could want in an illustration app, from designing icons to creating original artwork.

So why not the top spot? It wasn’t so much that Illustrator fell down anywhere, as a different app pipped it to the post…

1. Affinity Designer

The best app for illustration in 2021 is Affinity Designer. We’ve been fans since its first beta version, and we’ve watched it go from underdog to champion.

On top of being an excellent vector app, Designer is comfortable with raster graphics. Although it certainly can’t compete with Photoshop (Affinity built Photo for that), Designer is more than adequate for many image tasks, making it a great all-around design app. Designer was also the first design app to support macOS’ new M1 chip natively.

The knockout blow is that Affinity Designer is available as a desktop app and an iOS app; the two apps have minor differences in their interfaces; what matters is that both apps use the exact same file format. You can seamlessly switch between desktop, iPad, and back to desktop, taking advantage of the precision of a mouse and the expression of a stylus.

It’s this kind of flexibility that bends Affinity Designer to your workflow instead of the other way around, and that’s why it’s top of our list.

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In the AngularAndSpring project charts are displayed. To display the charts I have developed the ngx-simple-charts library. The design goal is to be D3.js based, have a typesafe Angular API, and be so simple and small that it can be migrated fast to new Angular versions. Currently the library supports line charts, bar charts might be supported in the future. 

Creating and Configuring the Angular Library

The Angular CLI can generate a library shell with this command: ng generate library <library_name>

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The new year is often packed with resolutions. Make the most of those goals and resolve to design better, faster, and more efficiently with some of these new tools and resources.

Here’s what new for designers this month.

Radix UI

Radix UI is an open-source UI component library for building high-quality, accessible design systems and web apps. It includes examples and guidelines for all kinds of user interface elements that provide guidance and really make you think about accessible website design. (And everything is usable!)

Froala Charts

Froala Charts is made to help you create data visualizations for web or mobile apps. Build any chart you can imagine – bar, line, area, heat map, sankey, radar, time series, and more. Plus, you can customize anything and everything, so it all matches your brand. This premium tool is enterprise-level and comes with a one-time license fee.

CSSfox

CSSfox is a collection of designs that you can use for inspiration. The curated community project includes posts, reviews, and award nominees and winners.

Pattern Generator

Pattern Generator is a tool to create seamless and royalty-free patterns that you can use in projects. Almost every element of the pattern design is customizable, and you can “shuffle” to get new style inspiration. Design a pattern you like and export it for use as a JPG, PNG, SVG, or CSS.

Type Scale Clamp Generator

Type Style Clamp Generator helps you create a visualize a typographic scale for web projects. Pick a font and determine a few other settings and see the scale right on the screen. You can even put in your own words to see how they would look. Then, flip to see how sizes appear on different devices. Find a scale you like and snag the code with a click.

Flowdash

Flowdash is a premium app that helps you build custom tools, data sets and streamline your business operations with one tool. Manage data and processes without code. The tool combines a spreadsheet’s familiarity with a visual workflow builder, plus built-in integrations to automate repetitive tasks so your team can focus on what matters.

Scale

Scale is a website that provides new and open-source illustrations that you can use for projects. Maybe the illustration generator’s neatest part is that you can change the color with just a click to match your brand. Then download the image as an SVG or PNG.

Pe•ple

Pe•ple is a tool that adds a “customizable community” to any website to help grow your fanbase and provide a boost to SEO. It allows you to integrate chat, commenting, emojis, and passwordless login, among other things.

K!sbag: Free Minimal Portfolio Template

K!sbag is a free minimal website template that’s made for portfolio sites. (Did you resolve to update yours in 2021?) It includes 6 pages in a ready-made HTML format and PSD.

Merico Build

Merico Build is like a fitness tracker for code. It uses contribution analytics to empower developers with insight dashboards and badges focused on self-improvement and career growth. Sign up with tools you already use – Github or Gitlab.

Automatic Social Share Images

Automatic Social Share Images solves a common website problem: Missing or broken images when posts or pages are shared on social media. This tutorial walks you through the code needed to create the right meta tags so that popular social media channels pick up the image you want for posts. The best part is this code helps you create a dynamic preview image, so you don’t have to make something special every single time.

Animated SVG Links

Animated SVG Links can add a little something special to your design. This pen is from Adam Kuhn and includes three different link styles.

Blush

Blush helps you create illustrations. With collections made by artists across the globe, there’s something for everyone and every project. All art is customizable, so you can play with variations to create something unique.

Palms

Palms is a set of 43 sets of hands to help illustrate projects. Each illustration is in a vector format and ready to use.

Tabbied

Tabbied allows you to create and customize patterns or artwork in a minimal style for various projects or backgrounds. Tinker with your artwork and patterns and then download a free, high-resolution version.

How to Create Animated Cards

How to Create Animated Cards is a great little tutorial by Johnny Simpson that uses WebGL and Three.js to create a style like those on Apple Music. The result is a stylish modern card style that you can follow along with the CodePen demo.

Bandero

Bandero is a fun slab with a rough texture and interesting letterforms. The character set is a little limited and is best-suited for display use.

Magilla

Magilla is a stunning modern serif with great lines and strokes. The premium typeface family has six styles, including an outline option.

Roadhouse

Roadhouse is one of those slab fonts that almost screams branding design. The type designer must have had this in mind, too, with stripe, bevel, inline, half fill, outline, drop extrude, and script options included. (This family is quite robust, or you can snag just one style.)

Street Art

Street Art is for those times when a graffiti style is all that will do. What’s nice about this option – free for personal use – is that the characters are highly readable.

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Using the Prometheus Operator has become a common choice when it comes to running Prometheus in a Kubernetes cluster. It can manage Prometheus and Alertmanager for us with the help of CRDs in Kubernetes. The kube-prometheus-stack Helm chart (formerly known as prometheus-operator) comes with Grafana, node_exporter, and more out of the box.

In a previous blog post about Prometheus, we took a look at setting up Prometheus and Grafana using manifest files. We also explored a few of the metrics exposed by YugabyteDB. In this post, we will be setting up Prometheus and Grafana using the kube-prometheus-stack chart. And we will configure Prometheus to scrape YugabyteDB pods. At the end, we will take a look at the YugabyteDB Grafana dashboard that can be used to visualize all the collected metrics.

Source de l’article sur DZONE