Grammarly Plagiarism Checker vs. Turnitin

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Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

Whether you’re writing your thesis or an essay, checking your work for plagiarism is essential to promote academic honesty. Online plagiarism detectors like Grammarly and Turnitin can help you spot duplicate content and correct them. 

Not sure which one to try? This Grammarly plagiarism checker vs. Turnitin review will help you decide which is more accurate and reliable. 

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an online grammar-checking platform that offers suggestions beyond your spelling, grammar, and punctuation. It also detects errors in your sentence structure, tone, and cohesiveness. Through contextual synonyms, the online tool helps several writers enhance their vocabulary.

This AI-powered writing assistant flags any word, phrase, or sentence that needs improvement. Proofread your work on the dedicated web editor or install the Grammarly extension and add-on on Word or your browser.

Grammarly also has a plagiarism detector that scans your work against billions of websites, publications, and articles, highlighting any duplicate content it finds. Then, the plagiarism tool provides a link to the source to help you make the proper citation.  

Because of its advanced features, Grammarly is our pick for the best online grammar checker. You can see my full review here.

Please note that there is no right or wrong choice here. One is not better than the other. My comparison of these two great programs breaks down the pros, cons, and main features of both, so you can decide which program will work the best for your editing and plagiarism-checking needs.

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is a popular plagiarism detection program that educational institutions or lecturers purchase to evaluate students’ originality in their work. Many people do not necessarily consider Turnitin a plagiarism tool but a “text-matching software.”

The application matches your work to any website on the internet, journals, or databases of student papers. Then, Turnitin creates an “Originality Report” of the document, which the teacher uses to grade the student. 

All of these features are based on Turnitin’s value for academic integrity. They also claim to promote an inclusive workplace with talented people in their authentic selves.  

It’s essential for the teacher to correctly interpret the results since Turnitin isn’t always accurate like Grammarly. They state that a 25% or below plagiarism score is ideal to ensure your paper is original.

Grammarly vs. Turnitin

Grammarly 

Character Limit: 100,000

Originality Score: Yes

Online and Offline Database: 1.7 billion+ Websites with Offline Database

Extra Features: Spelling and Grammar Checker

Reliability: 4/5

Response Time: 4/5

Security: 5/5

Who It’s For: Students, Bloggers, Business Owners, Etc.

Turnitin

Character Limit: 25,000-30,000

Originality Score: Yes

Online and Offline Database: 1.7 billion+ Websites with Offline Database

Extra Features: Email Reminders and Images

Reliability: 5/5

Response Time: 3/5

Security: 5/5

Who It’s For: Teachers and Students

Pros and Cons of Grammarly

Pros

  • Highly accurate plagiarism checker.
  • Displays your originality score with links to the source
  • Loads quickly.
  • 16+ billion databases.
  • Has a built-in spell and grammar checker.

Cons

  • Expensive.
  • Does not support other languages.

Pros and Cons of Turnitin

Pros

  • Highly accurate plagiarism checker.
  • Displays originality report with links to the source.
  • 15+ billion databases.
  • Supports different languages

Cons

  • Limited features.
  • Low character limit.
  • No option for editing once submitted to the teacher. 

Features of Grammarly

Grammarly isn’t primarily famous for its plagiarism checker, as writers use it for proofreading. Here’s a walkthrough of Grammarly’s boatload of features.

Plagiarism Checker

Grammarly compares your text to over 16 billion sites, academic papers from ProQuest, and private documents. It’s fewer than the number of sources Turnitin has for potential plagiarism, so their reports show different results. For some reason, Grammarly detects fewer identical pieces of content than Turnitin.

But what makes it better than Turnitin is the option to edit your work. Once you upload your document to Grammarly and scan for plagiarism, it doesn’t automatically submit your assignment to the teacher. 

Grammarly underlines any plagiarized phrase, sentence, or paragraph and then provides a link to the source. You can click on the link to check it and add the necessary citation. 

The plagiarism detector also produces your Originality Score to see how much of your work is original. But do not overly rely on their report as the tool sometimes displays false positives. It flags common phrases as plagiarism even though they shouldn’t.

Spelling, Grammar, and Style Checker

Grammarly’s unique selling point is the powerful feature of a spelling and grammar checker. Its free version offers basic writing suggestions, such as the following:

  • Spelling mistakes.
  • Grammar errors.
  • Punctuation correction.
  • Conciseness.

If you’re a Grammarly Premium user, you get to enjoy the free features with the following additional tools to help with your writing style:

  • Clarity-focused rewrites.
  • Tone adjustments.
  • Word choice.
  • Formality level.
  • Fluency.

Multiple Integrations

Grammarly is available as a web editor or as a browser extension. It’s accessible on Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Firefox. These extensions allow you to use the tool on Google Docs, Email, and other sites with text fields.

You can also download Grammarly for Word and Outlook. Or download the desktop applications to access it on Slack, Skype, Apple Mail, Discord, and more.

Pricing

Grammarly has a free version that doesn’t include the plagiarism checker feature. You need to have a Premium subscription to access this tool. Its prices are higher than Turnitin because of the additional functionalities for spelling and grammar. 

Here are the pricing plans for Grammarly Premium:

  • Monthly subscription: $30 per month.
  • Quarterly subscription: $20 per month (billed as one payment of $60 per quarter).
  • Annual subscription: $12 per month (billed as one payment of $144 per year).

You can also buy Grammarly’s Business version for your workplace. The standard price is about $12.50 per month per member, billed as $150 per year for three members. You can save more money if your team is bigger.

Security

Grammarly guarantees its free and premium users data protection and secure infrastructure that are held to high standards. The company does not use, keep, or sell any content you save to the cloud-based software. It’s also safe from hackers.

The online grammar and plagiarism checker uses third-party verification for data security and Amazon Web Services for private cloud. With Web Application Firewall, AES-256 Encryption, and TLS encryption, there’s no need to worry about other parties accessing you.

But Grammarly Business users experience a different security system. This version uses SAML single sign-on, Team Administration, and two-step authentication. It’s also easier to reach out to the security team.

Features of Turnitin

Besides its plagiarism checker tools, Turnitin has many beneficial facets which help teachers and students.

Plagiarism Detection Software

Turnitin’s main feature is its “text-matching software,” which creates a digital receipt of a student’s originality on their work. The Originality Report gives plagiarism checks and produces a percentage of the work which isn’t copied from other sources.

But the teacher should disable the citations and quotations so that Turnitin doesn’t flag them as plagiarism. Turnitin also mentions that teachers shouldn’t entirely rely on the tool because similarities detected do not necessarily mean academic dishonesty.

Most plagiarism programs fall short on the size of their databases, but Turnitin never fails to impress. They have a growing database of 70 billion websites while also cross-checking previously submitted work of other users. 

But one downside to this extensive database is its tendency to produce sources that are not visible. Academic repositories and private databases are the culprits. You can request to see the documents if this happens to you, but it will take a few days before you see the result. 

Grading Tools

Educators can take advantage of Turnitin’s Grading Tools to offer comments and corrections on students’ work. Teachers can even leave voice comments on the assignment. The functionality provides options of categories of commonly used comments and tag creations.

You can automatically comment “nice use of critical thinking!” on a learner’s work. Whether you’re on the laptop or iPad, you can free-write in the margins of their document.  

Grammar Rating Report

Turnitin has an underwhelming grammar checker that generates a report of your spelling and grammatical errors. It uses its ETS e-rater to see if students observe proper grammar rules in their assignments. But it doesn’t help in correcting them.

Only the instructor can take advantage of this feature for evaluating the students. They observe which areas need to be fixed for students to receive feedback on their work. 

Unlike Grammarly, Turnitin doesn’t provide options to “accept” or “reject” the suggestions with the grammar mistakes. In fact, there are no suggestions at all! You won’t find explanations for your grammatical errors, leaving no room for students to learn.

Multiple Languages

Turnitin offers multilingual support, which many plagiarism tools lack. Check the originality of your work in over a dozen of languages. It’s ideal for bilingual or international students who write academic papers.

You can also use Turnitin to check your students’ content if you’re a foreign language teacher. The program currently supports the following languages:

  • English.
  • Swedish,
  • Portuguese.
  • Norwegian.
  • Spanish.
  • French.
  • Danish.
  • German.  

Multiple Integrations

If your school used Turnitin, you must upload your assignment to their website. But Turnitin now offers integration with the learning management system. Upload your work to the required submission bin, and Turnitin will send you an Originality Report within minutes.

You can also upload your paper using your desktop, Google Drive, or Dropbox. These features are also accessible to teachers, making their work much more manageable. 

Turnitin is also available on the iPad. There’s no need to switch to your laptop or desktop when submitting your app anymore. 

Pricing

Unlike Grammarly, Turnitin doesn’t quickly sell its services to individuals. They market their license to entire academic institutions for wide-scale use.

Turnitin also doesn’t show its prices on the internet. The academic personnel needs to contact their sales team for a quote. But users say that its prices start at $5000 per year. It’s more expensive than Grammarly, but only because several teachers and students will use it. 

The educational technology department of your university integrates the software with the learning management system. 

Security

Turnitin uses an impressive set of security tools to ensure the safety of students, teachers, and the whole academic institution. It uses safe data centers to keep your information while employing a cloud platform that complies with ISO and IEC.

The plagiarism tool will not collect unnecessary data for advertising purposes. You can also control the Turnitin settings on your learning management system for internal security. 

Who Should Use Grammarly?

All students, teachers, and writers should use Grammarly because it’s a comprehensive proofreading tool for correcting spelling, grammar, and punctuations. 

Fiction, non-fiction, and academic authors can use Grammarly’s functionality to fix sentence structures and tone. Non-native English speakers can also rely on this application to sound more fluent.

Students, academic writers, and business writers can use the plagiarism detector to ensure the originality of their work. It will help them correctly cite their sources and paraphrase ideas.

Who Should Use Turnitin?

Turnitin is best for academic institutions that want students, educators, and researchers to practice academic integrity. The company sells its license to colleges and universities instead of individuals for a cheaper solution to check learners’ work.

Is Grammarly Plagiarism Checker as Good as Turnitin?

Grammarly is more valuable than Turnitin because of the additional features and the option to edit one’s work. It also caters to a more diverse market of writers, including individual students, researchers, fiction authors, and business writers.

Turnitin is slightly more accurate as it scans more instances of plagiarism. However, it automatically submits your work to the instructor without giving you a chance to edit it.

I hope this comparison guide has taught you about the similarities and differences between Grammarly Plagiarism Checker vs. Turnitin.