Vale vs WRITER

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.

WRITER has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.