RedPen vs textlint
RedPen
redpen.cctextlint
textlint.orgSide by side
| Figure | RedPen | textlint |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 2 |
| Spec score · Writing Style Checkers | 7.0 (#27) | 8.4 (#9) |
| Integrations | The project lists integrations or packages for Atom, Emacs, Vim, WordPress, IntelliJ IDEA, Sublime Text, and Visual Studio Code. | The documentation lists integrations for editors including Visual Studio Code, Vim, Emacs, Atom, Sublime Text, micro, and NetBeans. |
| License | The project repository identifies its license as Apache-2.0. | The core project is released under the MIT license with copyright attributed to azu. |
| Purpose | RedPen is a proofreading tool for writers and programmers who write technical documents or manuals that must follow a writing standard. | textlint is a pluggable linting tool for natural language text. |
| Support | The project lists documentation, a mailing list, and English and Japanese chat rooms for support. | The project directs users to its documentation and community discussions, and asks users to open issues for bugs and feature requests. |
Plans
In their own words
textlint
textlint is a free, open-source tool for checking natural-language text against rules users install and configure. It parses text into an abstract syntax tree, evaluates that structure, and reports errors or warnings. Markdown and plain text are supported by default, while plugins can add HTML and other formats. The tool has no bundled default rules, so users need to select and set up the checks they want. Its CLI can automatically fix problems and produce output in multiple formats. The project lists integrations for Visual Studio Code, Vim, Emacs, Atom, Sublime Text, micro, and NetBeans, and text checks can run in GitHub Actions workflows for commits and pull requests. The CLI can also run as an MCP server, allowing AI assistants to lint and fix text using a project’s textlint configuration. For browser use, @textlint/editor is described as an offline text-linting extension. Developers can use the package’s high-level APIs to integrate textlint into applications. It requires Node.js 20 or later and is MIT-licensed.