Plagiarism is understandably a major concern both in academia and in the professional world, not least of all because of the sudden emergence and rapid development of AI and its impact on writing and publishing. For that reason, plagiarism checkers have recently experienced a surge of popularity. But how well do free plagiarism checkers really work, and do you get what you pay for?
In order to help students and professionals in the writing and publishing industry not only properly cite their references but also give credit where it’s due regarding ideas and concepts, we’ve reviewed the best free plagiarism checkers online and are proud to present you with our top picks.
Whether you’re looking for a free plagiarism checker that handles multiple languages and corrects your grammar and spelling or you want a more intuitive writing improvement system or a tool to help with search engine optimization, we’ve gathered the best of the best in one complete review
A free plagiarism checker is often offered as part of a larger suite of anti-plagiarism tools. Some of the tools below offer assistance with writing, checking grammar or even translating with the added benefit of checking for plagiarism. Many of the programs that fall under free plagiarism checkers also offer a premium version with more features, more words or more pages available to be checked. Read the reviews below to find the right one for your needs.
Grammarly is well-known for its ability to check for grammatical and spelling errors, as well as its suggestions to improve one’s writing. But one of its lesser-known features is the inclusion of its plagiarism checker. A basic plagiarism scan is free, however a premium Grammarly account entitles you to a much more comprehensive check. And, because it’s integrated into Grammarly’s Writing Assistant, it can check for plagiarism while you write.
Quetext leverages its proprietary DeepSearch™ technology, a unique and advanced plagiarism checking system that performs a thorough scan of a variety of online databases, academic journals, research papers and more. Perhaps most importantly for those who are concerned about their content being uploaded and stored on some unknown third-party server, Quetext doesn’t store your content in their database and keeps all uploads secure and private.
Like Grammarly, Quetext offers both a free and paid version, with the paid version being more detailed in its checks than the free option.
Plagiarism Detector is a versatile free plagiarism checker with an intuitive, user-friendly interface that makes checking for plagiarism easy and fast. Just copy and paste your text or optionally upload a document. The tool then goes to work comparing your document to millions of others. Like Quetext, Plagiarism Detector doesn’t share or save your documents, keeping your information private.
It also supports many different languages and file formats, making it an excellent option as a free plagiarism checker in languages other than English.
DupliChecker not only scans for plagiarism but also checks your grammar, spelling and paraphrasing, a more advanced type of plagiarism that often remains undetected by even more advanced plagiarism checkers. Like with Plagiarism Detector, you can upload your document or copy and paste it. DupliChecker is completely free, making it a popular free plagiarism checker for students and professionals alike.
PaperRater is a combination plagiarism checker and proofreader that not only checks writing for grammatical and spelling errors but also provides tips on how to improve writing. The free plagiarism checker offers a number of features at no charge, but upgrading to the premium option unlocks even more features.
A simple and streamlined plagiarism checker designed for content writers and publishers to check for plagiarism, the SmallSEOTools Plagiarism Checker is one of a host of free, web-based programs that help website owners with their search engine optimization, including checking their content for plagiarism.
One of the most popular and oldest plagiarism checkers online, Copyscape offers a basic service for free that allows you to check for plagiarism of your website content elsewhere on the web. Unlike other free plagiarism checkers, Copyscape is strictly limited to URLs, so if you need to check a Microsoft Word document, Google doc or text for plagiarism, it won’t be able to help you unless you’ve uploaded that content as a web page.
A fast and efficient free plagiarism checker that uses advanced algorithm to check for plagiarism in “chunks” of text and compares those chunks of text to online sources. PlagScan is owned by TurnItIn, a well-known academic plagiarism checker used by numerous schools, colleges and universities. Plagscan allows users to prepay based on how much they use it, with plans spanning different word counts available at different price points. A free trial is also available.
SearchEngineReports offers a number of free and useful tools for writers, publishers and search engine professionals. In addition to its free plagiarism checker, it also offers an article rewriter and a reverse image search. Using their web-based platform, you can either paste in your text or upload a document which is then checked against millions of web pages for duplicate content. You can run up to 50 plagiarism checks per day with their free tool.
If you only need to check small amounts of text, Plagium is a free online plagiarism checker that does the job quickly and efficiently. You can do a few searches for free, but if you’re scanning too much, Plagium will offer you an upgraded service for as little as 0.04 cents per page. Higher price plans offer more in-depth scans. The site also offers a file-scanning option.
PlagTracker checks content for plagiarism and produces a report that shows the percentage of similarity to plagiarized content along with possible sources. The only difference between the paid and free version of this tool are that the free version takes longer to scan, making it an excellent resource for students, educators and publishers alike. It also scans for plagiarism in several different languages and scans both web pages and academic databases.
Free plagiarism checkers can be helpful if you just want to check basic sources or ensure that your content is properly cited or referenced. However, for a more in-depth scan of the harder to pinpoint types of plagiarism, it’s better to use a paid tool. This is because the computing power needed to scan the document, process the text and compare it is considerable, and computing power costs money.
In deciding between a paid or free plagiarism checker, you’ll also want to consider what you need it for. Some of our free plagiarism checkers scan multiple file formats. Others offer helpful writing tools to polish your papers and help you create your own unique style and tone, and still others offer to check for plagiarism in Spanish, French, German and other foreign languages. Decide how you plan to use the plagiarism checker and in what contexts in order to decide on the tool that’s right for you.
Keep in mind that whether free or paid, no plagiarism checker is 100% foolproof. There may be false positives and some instances of plagiarism can fly beneath the radar of even the most sophisticated tool.
Originality.ai combines the best of plagiarism and AI detection in one powerful platform. By running your copy through the Originality.ai content scanner, you can check for AI-generated text and detect plagiarism at the same time.
Using the content scanner provides an opportunity for further review because not all AI-generated content is accurate, factual, or even correct. This could lead to inaccuracies in your writing and misunderstandings for your readers.
As AI continues to evolve, so too does Originality.ai. Our unique algorithms and machine learning systems are trained to detect both human-written and AI-written content, and as new advances in AI are released, our models continue to improve.