Hemingway Editor color-codes your sentences to make them tighter. Lettera gives you a typewriter carriage and won't let you go back. One cleans prose. The other gets prose onto the page. They're not the same phase of writing.
Both tools borrow from Hemingway — one his name, the other his method. Hemingway Editor helps you edit the way he edited: cutting the fat, shortening the sentences, removing the passive voice. Lettera helps you draft the way he drafted: sitting down, writing forward, not looking back until the session is done. These are consecutive steps in the writing process, not competing products.
Hemingway Editor is a prose-analysis tool. Paste in your text (or write directly in the editor) and it highlights issues: complex sentences in yellow, very complex sentences in red, passive voice in green, adverbs in blue, simpler alternatives in purple. It gives you a readability grade and a word count. The point is clarity — it wants every sentence to be readable, direct, and lean. Available as a web app (free) and a desktop app (paid).
Lettera is a desktop writing application with typewriter mechanics. The page has texture. The cursor follows a carriage. Purist Mode turns backspace into strikethrough. It manages chapters, tracks daily writing goals through Paper Trail, and stores notes in the Drawer. The point is not what your prose looks like after — it's what the act of writing feels like during.
| Lettera | Hemingway Editor | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 (14-day free trial) | Free (web) / $19.99 (desktop) |
| Platform | macOS, Windows | Browser (free), macOS, Windows (paid) |
| Purpose | Drafting | Editing / analysis |
| Readability analysis | — | ✓ |
| Sentence highlighting | — | ✓ (complexity, passive, adverbs) |
| Typewriter carriage | ✓ | — |
| No-delete mode | ✓ (Purist Mode) | — |
| Paper textures | ✓ | — |
| Chapter management | ✓ | — |
| Daily writing goals | ✓ (Paper Trail) | — |
| Per-chapter notes | ✓ (the Drawer) | — |
| AI writing features | No. The words are yours. | Yes (AI rewrite suggestions) |
| Local files | ✓ | Desktop version only |
Hemingway Editor is the better tool for revision. When you have a draft and want to tighten it, the color-coded analysis is genuinely useful. It catches the passive constructions you didn't notice, the adverbs that weakened your verbs, the sentences that grew three clauses too long. For bloggers, copywriters, and non-fiction writers who want their prose clean and readable, Hemingway Editor provides instant, actionable feedback.
The web version is free and requires no installation. The desktop version adds direct publishing and offline use. Either way, you can paste in a chapter and get clarity on what needs work within seconds.
Hemingway Editor is a workshop for sentences you've already written. Lettera is a studio for sentences you haven't written yet. If your problem is editing — prose that's too long, too passive, too cluttered — Hemingway Editor addresses that directly. If your problem is drafting — staring at the page, deleting your first sentence four times, never getting past the opening paragraph — Lettera addresses that instead.
Purist Mode stops you from erasing. The carriage movement keeps your attention on the current line. Paper Trail shows you that you showed up yesterday and the day before and the day before that. The Drawer holds your notes without pulling you away from the chapter. None of these things analyze your prose. They support the act of getting prose onto the page, which has to happen before any analysis is useful.
There's also a philosophical tension worth naming: Hemingway Editor judges your writing in real time with colors and scores. It now offers AI-powered rewrite suggestions too — machine-generated alternatives to your sentences. Lettera deliberately refuses to judge anything, and it has no AI. It doesn't count your words against a goal bar. It doesn't flag your sentences. It doesn't suggest rewrites. It just gives you a page and a carriage and lets you write. For writers who find that real-time judgment inhibits their drafting, Lettera's silence is the feature.
Good writing is clear writing. Every sentence should be as direct and readable as possible. Analysis and feedback during editing make your prose stronger.
Good writing starts with a complete draft. The page should have texture and the cursor should have weight. Editing comes later. First, the words have to exist.
Hemingway Editor asks: is this sentence as clean as it could be? Lettera asks: did you finish writing today? One makes your second draft better. The other makes sure the first draft exists.
You should. This is the most natural pairing of any comparison on this page. Draft in Lettera — carriage movement, Purist Mode, the whole environment. Write forward. Don't edit. When the chapter is done, export to plain text and paste it into Hemingway Editor. Let the colors show you what to cut, what to simplify, what to restructure. Lettera is the morning session. Hemingway Editor is the afternoon revision. They were built for consecutive phases of the same process, and using them together is better than using either alone.
Hemingway Editor and Lettera aren't competitors. They're stages. If you already have a drafting practice and want to tighten your prose, Hemingway Editor is excellent and the web version costs nothing. If your struggle is the draft itself — getting words down, writing forward, not freezing up — Lettera addresses that with an environment no analysis tool can provide. The carriage, the paper, the strikethrough, the calendar of days you showed up. Fourteen days, no cost, and you might find that the draft comes easier when the desk feels right.
Free 14-day trial for macOS and Windows. No account required.
Lettera — a quiet place to write.