Hemingway Editor highlights sentences that are hard to read, passive voice, adverbs and complex words — with a colour-coded system that makes patterns in your writing instantly visible. Free web version at hemingwayapp.com. Desktop app available.
Hemingway Editor is a writing tool with one focused purpose: making your writing clearer and more readable. Named after Ernest Hemingway's famously concise prose style, it highlights sentences that are hard to read (too long or complex), overuse of passive voice, excessive adverbs, and words with simpler alternatives — using a colour-coded system that makes patterns in your writing immediately visible.
Unlike Grammarly, which covers grammar correction and a wide range of style improvements, Hemingway is narrowly focused on readability and conciseness. It asks: can this be said more simply? It is a brutally effective tool for cutting corporate wordiness, academic hedging, and the kind of over-complicated prose that loses readers midway through a sentence.
Hemingway Editor Plus (the AI-enhanced version) adds generative AI features: AI sentence rewrites, tone adjustment, expanding content with more detail, shortening passages, and prompt-driven modifications ("make this more assertive" / "add examples"). The AI uses "AI sentences" — a monthly credit system similar to Grammarly's generative features.
A desktop version (Hemingway Editor 3) is available for one-time purchase — it works offline and is suitable for writers who do not want a subscription or cloud dependency.
Paste any text into Hemingway and it highlights immediately:
Yellow sentences — Hard to read. Long or complex sentences that would benefit from being split or simplified.
Red sentences — Very hard to read. These should almost always be simplified.
Purple words — A simpler alternative exists. Hemingway suggests a shorter, more common word.
Blue words — Adverbs. Hemingway follows the advice to use strong verbs instead of weak verbs modified by adverbs ("she ran quickly" → "she sprinted").
Green phrases — Passive voice. "The report was written by the team" → "The team wrote the report". Active voice is almost always clearer.
The right sidebar shows your readability grade (aim for Grade 9 or below for most web content), word count, sentence count and reading time.
Any writer who produces content that will be read on screen — blog posts, newsletters, email, website copy, social media. The tool is particularly valuable for writers from academic or technical backgrounds whose default writing style is complex and dense. It is also useful as a final check on any piece of content before publication: paste it in, see the highlights, and make targeted improvements.
It is not suitable as a primary grammar checker (use Grammarly for that), for creative fiction where deliberate complexity is part of the style, or for technical documentation where precise technical language is required even if it is not simple.
The web version at hemingwayapp.com is free with full readability analysis. Hemingway Editor Plus (with AI features) is available via subscription — pricing available at hemingwayapp.com. The desktop app (Hemingway Editor 3) is a one-time purchase for offline use without a subscription.
Write first, then edit with Hemingway. The most common mistake is editing in Hemingway while writing — this slows you down and interrupts your thinking. Write your full draft first. Then paste it into Hemingway. Let the highlights show you where to focus your editing attention. Fix the red sentences first (very hard to read), then yellow, then passive voice, then adverbs. Check your readability grade after each round of edits.
Hemingway gives your writing a US school grade level. Grade 6–8 is ideal for web content, emails and marketing. Grade 9–10 is fine for professional business writing. Above Grade 12 suggests the writing is unnecessarily complex for most audiences. Grade level is calculated from sentence length and word complexity — it is not a judgement about intelligence, just about accessibility.
Hemingway is a tool, not a rule. Some long sentences are fine — complex ideas sometimes require complex sentences. Some passive voice is intentional. Some adverbs are the right word. Use the highlights as flags that draw your attention, not as mandatory corrections. Ask: is this highlighted sentence actually harder to understand than it needs to be? If yes, simplify. If no, leave it.
Use it after Grammarly, not instead of it. Hemingway focuses on readability; Grammarly focuses on correctness. The ideal workflow: write draft → Grammarly for errors → Hemingway for readability → final human review. They cover different problems and work well together.
Aim for Grade 9, not Grade 5. Some writers overcorrect and try to eliminate every highlighted sentence. Grade 5 writing sounds dumbed-down. Grade 9 writing is clear and accessible. Professional audiences for business content are usually fine with Grade 9–10. The goal is not to eliminate all complexity, just unnecessary complexity.
Hemingway Editor was created by Adam and Ben Long and launched in 2013 as a web tool. The desktop app (Hemingway Editor 3) works offline and is available as a one-time purchase from hemingwayapp.com. Hemingway Editor Plus adds AI-powered generative features including rewrites, tone adjustment and content expansion, using "AI sentences" as the credit unit.
Hemingway uses the Automated Readability Index (ARI) and similar algorithms to calculate grade level from average word and sentence length. The colour-coding system applies rule-based thresholds: sentences over 30 words are yellow, sentences over 40 words are red. Passive voice detection uses grammatical parsing. Adverb detection identifies words ending in "-ly" that modify verbs.