Readable vs Vale
Readable
readable.com
Vale
vale.shSide by side
| Figure | Readable | Vale |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $12/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 1 |
| Spec score · Writing Style Checkers | 8.5 (#6) | 7.7 (#21) |
| Founded | LinkedIn lists Readable as founded in 2016. | 2017 |
| Intended users | Readable describes its audiences as authors, marketers, educators, lawyers, and others working to improve writing. | Vale is aimed at people and teams who want style-guide checks in their editors and alongside their code, including documentation teams. |
| Purpose | Readable is an online toolkit for analyzing and improving writing readability and quality. | Vale is an open-source command-line linter that checks prose against style-guide rules. |
| Support | Readable advertises an extensive knowledge base plus in-app and email support. | The project directs users to GitHub issues or Discord for questions and support. |
Plans
In their own words
Vale
Vale is an open-source command-line linter that checks prose against style-guide rules. It runs offline as a single binary, without an account, server, or model. Supported markup includes Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, MDX, MyST, Quarto, Typst, HTML, XML, DITA, Org, and QDoc. It can extract and check comments in 19 programming languages, and Vale Views can target content in OpenAPI, Jupyter notebooks, commit messages, transcripts, docstrings, JSON, YAML, and TOML. Users can write custom rules in YAML and choose which rules and style packages apply. Ready-made packages include Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, readability, and Harper grammar styles. Integrations span editors including VS Code, Cursor, Neovim, JetBrains IDEs, and Obsidian, as well as GitHub Actions and pre-commit hooks. Its language server offers autocomplete, diagnostics, hover popups, and quick fixes. Only error-level alerts cause a non-zero exit code in CI; warnings and suggestions pass. The free plan is MIT-licensed; paid plans start at $19/user/mo.