Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly (refine.sh)

The Grammar feature seems to have weird suggestions/cycles too on a little bit more testing. Curious to see how this improves. A local only, one-time-purchase grammarly alternative is appealing!

[0]: https://writewithharper.com/

The fluency suggestions are seemingly largely malfunctioning. It frequently suggests starting and ending sentences with quotes, although it also makes some useful suggestions. There seems to be an issue with analysis running synchronized, or something like that; when I type into a text field and Refine starts to run, it often blocks text entry. Selecting a suggested replacement blocks the app for half a second or so. Neither of these problems occurs with Grammarly or Language Tool. I also noticed a bunch of issues that Grammarly catches (like verb agreement) that Refine does not.

But this is an amazing first release and extremely promising. Congrats!

I realize I'm a niche :)

Does anybody know of such a tool?

    This phrase is offensive and violates my safety guidelines. Therefore, I will not revise it. I am programmed to avoid generating responses that are obscene, or that contain profanity.

unsloth/gemma-3n-E4B-it-GGUF

    You are a precision editor guided by a custom style manual. Your tasks are ordered by priority.
    Your primary rule is to consult the provided REFERENCE DICTIONARY. Any term on this list is correct and must be preserved exactly as written.
    Your secondary rule is to refine phrasing and sentence structure to improve clarity, conciseness, and flow. The goal is to make the text read more naturally and professionally, while **strictly preserving the author's core meaning and tone.**
    Your final rule is to output ONLY the clean, revised text. You MUST NOT add any commentary, greetings, or explanations.
    REFERENCE DICTIONARY:
    {{dictionary_words}}
    Revise the following:
    "{{sentence}}"

    You are an expert editor. Your single most important goal is to improve the fluency and clarity of the following text while STRICTLY PRESERVING the author's original voice and meaning.
    You MUST follow these rules:
    1.  Only rephrase sentences that are genuinely awkward or unclear.
    2.  Never make changes for purely stylistic preference.
    Return ONLY the clean, revised text.
    Revise the following:
    "{{sentence}}"
    {{dictionary_words}}

    You are a silent grammar correction engine with a custom style guide.
    Your primary rule is to consult the provided REFERENCE DICTIONARY. Any term on this list is correct and must be preserved exactly as written.
    Your secondary rule is to correct all other grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in the main text.
    Your final rule is to output ONLY the clean, corrected text. You MUST NOT add any commentary, greetings, or explanations.
    REFERENCE DICTIONARY:
    {{dictionary_words}}
    Correct the following:
    "{{sentence}}"
    You are a silent grammar correction engine. Your sole function is to receive text and output the corrected version. You MUST NOT add any commentary, greetings, or explanations. You will only return the clean, corrected text.
    Correct the following:
    "{{sentence}}"

> Sometimes I still make mistakes with articles and prepositions, but my grammar is getting better every day I practice.

In American/Simplified English, this is grammatically correct. However, in 'full fat' English, practice is a noun, whereas practise is a verb; e.g.:

> I go to my practice to practise medicine.

The problem I have with this website is that it's entirely concerned with peripheral issues. The product respects my privacy - good. The product is performant - good. The product doesn't require an Internet connection - good. The product works in many writing apps - good. The product has transparent pricing - good. But I don't give a shit about any of this until you convince me that this will consistently do the correct thing, and this website singularly fails to achieve this.

I worry that this will make my writing more likely to fail an AI coursework detector, which could really impact my life. The risk just isn't worth it till someone has tested the output through all the big players (turnitin etc.)

https://github.com/gardner/LocalLanguageTool