11 Best Grammar Websites For Students Of All Budgets

Discover the best grammar websites for students to help you with English-language writing.

In the early 2000s, I studied journalism for four years. We spent a year of that course learning the finer points of English grammar. Our lecturer tasked us with buying several large grammar books and bringing them to class each week. These books were a great resource, but I couldn’t help but wish for an easier way to learn the finer points of English grammar. Today, students can use the best grammar websites as reference guides and edit their work.

I’ve spent dozens of hours browsing the best grammar websites and testing their various tools and resources. I use them while editing blog posts, articles, books, and technical papers for this and other websites.

Students, unlike other writers, have specific needs when it comes to learning grammar. Budget or lack thereof is often the number one factor. For example, a high school student isn’t going to spend money on grammar software, whereas a postgraduate could benefit from a website explaining citations. Our selections include reference websites and free and premium tools for students of various budgets and needs. 

Grammarly is an ideal website for students because of its helpful grammar blog and thanks to its ubiquitous plugin. As we explain in our guide to using the Grammarly essay check, it’s free to use and works on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS via its dedicators apps, plugins and keyboards.

A good grammar checker, like Grammarly for students, serves as the last line of defence before submitting an essay, a research paper a piece of academic writing for submission or publication. 

Students can use it to scan their papers and fix spelling, grammar and syntax issues quickly and easily. As detailed in our Grammarly review, even the free version fixes more problems than the grammar checker bundled with an operating system or word processor. If you take out a premium subscription, its suggestions come with detailed grammar explanations, so students can improve their grammar skills by fixing their work. 

Typically a good grammar checker bills based on the number of words checked or user seats. Grammarly costs $30 per month per user. Some grammar checkers offer discounts for educational bodies and those working in academia. This tool is no exception. Learn how to claim a Grammarly student discount. 

ProWritingAid is one of the top grammar checkers we recommend for students. Users can use this tool to get the context behind grammar errors, thanks to over 20 different writing reports. The app provides explanations and videos offering context behind each potential mistake or error. It’s free to check up to 500 words. 

The ProWritingAid team also runs a fantastic blog full of grammar and writing advice. Interestingly, this grammar tool surfaces grammar explanations from the blog as part of its reports. We regularly use ProWritingAid for long-form grammar checkers. This tool, like the one mentioned previously, is also great for catching instances of the passive voice and fixing them with helpful explanations. 

Read our ProWritingAid review to learn more.

Correctly citing a work in the preferred style is essential for any student if they want a paper to get a good grade or achieve recognition. However, managing citations can become cumbersome and time-consuming. 

Depending on the volume of sources, a researcher may want to evaluate a grammar checker based on how it handles citations. Some students can get this by using a grammar checker that checks citations for grammar and formatting issues. 

However, a researcher with more complex needs may need a citation manager included with a grammar checker. Quillbot, for example, does just that. 

Read our Quillbot review to learn more.

Students have limited budgets and don’t have the financial resources to spend on fancy grammar software. So they sometimes rely on free tools. 

Unfortunately, free grammar typically monetizes via distracting ads. These ads are off-putting while editing a paper. Similarly, free tools often have a limited feature set or can only check a small number of words.

Hemingway App is an exception. It’s free and easy to use. This website is built around Ernest Hemingway’s maxim: “Omit needless words.” 

It’ll help students identify unnecessary adverbs, adjectives and words they should remove from their essays and work. A student can scan thousands of words and dramatically improve the readability of a piece of writing. This act of self-editing is the easiest way for a student to improve their English writing skills. 

Read our Hemingway App review to learn more.

Students writing in academia must adhere to a style guide for the college or university. This style guide helps them format their work and cite it correctly. Sticking to a style guide is critical if a student wants to achieve a good grade.

Three popular guides with online resources include MLA, APA and the Chicago Manual of Style. We particularly like the Chicago Manual of Style website. It is accessible online as part of a free trial and is popular with media companies too. 

Students can look up common grammar topics and syntax queries quickly and easily. It costs $41 for an annual subscription. The American Psychological Association offers a similar resource for students following APA.

If students want to apply a style guide to essays and papers, consider Grammarly and or CorrectEnglish. The former supports custom dictionaries and style rules. The latter enables using styles for headings, subheadings and body text at a click. 

To learn more, check out our list of house style guide examples.

Most English language learners inadvertently rely on filler words and cliches during a first draft. A good student removes as many of these as possible during revision. The easiest way to do so is with the help of a good dictionary.

Merriam-Webster contains a freely accessible dictionary and thesaurus, which students can use to help with word choice, synonyms, antonyms, and other parts of speech. If you’re looking for a daily grammar email, join this website’s word of the day newsletter. It’ll help students improve their working vocabulary via email tips. 

Why use a weak word when a better one will do! For more, check out our filler words list.

Grammar Girl, AKA Mignon Fogarty, is the biggest influencer in the world of grammar. She’s even written one of the best grammar books available on the topic and hosts an award-winning podcast about grammar skills.

Her website Quick and Dirty Tips website features hundreds of articles about grammar topics like capitalization, tenses, syntax, nouns, adverb usage, the comma and more. The articles include video lessons, example sentences and practice exercises for English learners.

Students in college or university spend an inordinate amount of time consulting primary and secondary sources. While secondary sources lend credibility to research papers and academic writing, they can open students up to potential issues, like accidental plagiarism.

Similarly, a student may have an interesting factoid or statistic, but they can’t find the source. Scribbr enables a student to check the paper for incidences of accidental plagiarism and also source proofreaders. It’s built using the popular TurnItIn plagiarism check software. Many universities use TurnItIn, although it’s hard to access outside academia. Scribbr is the best way to get access to that tool.

To learn more, read our Scribbr review.

Established in 2001, this grammar website is a comprehensive resource of informational content about grammar and spelling rules. It contains a grammar checker, spell checker, ebooks, articles and more. We also particularly like the list of commonly misspelt words.

Grammar.com contains a community whereby students can interact with other members about the finer points of English grammar. The online downside is this website is primarily focused on US grammar rules and thus less suitable for those in other countries. That said, it’s a good resource for those in high school or learning English as a second language, as US English is more widely used online than British English. 

Learn English is a similar grammar resource to our previous selection except for those writing in British English. Founded and funded by the British Council, this website contains practical grammar exercises covering grammar terms topics like pronoun usage, determiners and quantifiers, adjectives, adverbs and more. 

This website also contains quizzes and grammar practice tests for A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 proficiency levels. In short, use this website if you’re learning British English grammar.

Purdue Writing Lab is a grammar resource created by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The website features comprehensive and free instructional guides about research, citations, avoiding plagiarism and general writing advice. Finding the right grammar advice on this site can take time, but it’s all free and practical. 

Much of this grammar content is supported by video lessons hosted on YouTube. For example, the “Writing is a Conversation” lesson contains a 17-minute overview of this topic for graduate student writers. This website also includes in-depth resources for students learning US English as a second language.

Best Grammar Websites for Students: The Final Word

A range of great grammar websites for students exist. Some of these publish informational and reference content about grammar. Others offer tools that students can use for free and or for a fee. 

If you’re looking for a good grammar website, consider Gammar.com (if in the US) or Learn English (if learning British English). Supplement those websites with some online grammar reference tools.

If you want software, we reviewed and profiled the best grammar resources and tools on this site. In our tests, Grammarly regularly features number one due to its functionality, AI-powered writing assistant and ease of use. We also love its plagiarism checker. We aren’t the only ones. Academics in this Research Gate thread also praised Grammarly.

Quillbot is particularly good for managing citations and bibliographies, assuming you’re comfortable using a style guide. ProWritingAid is another popular grammar website. Its grammar tool has a steeper learning curve than other tools. Students should also consider using websites like Miriam-Website as part of their referencing process. If you liked this post, you might also find these essays about being a student helpful.

FAQs Best Grammar Websites for Students