textlint vs Vale

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.

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.