Hunspell hunspell/hunspell

Widely used spell-checking library and command-line tool behind LibreOffice, Firefox and Chrome spell check, with dictionaries for many languages.

Creator kit + Compare GitHub ↗ Install guide (official) ↗

Hunspell at a glance

Checked 15 Oct 2026

Hunspell is the spell checker and morphological analyser used by LibreOffice, Firefox, Chrome, Linux distributions and macOS (v1.7.5, October 2026). It handles languages with rich morphology and compounding, such as Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish and German, via separate .aff/.dic dictionaries. It is a library plus an Ispell-style terminal tool, licensed LGPL/GPL/MPL. Spelling only: no grammar, style, AI rewriting or plagiarism checks, and no app of its own beyond the CLI.

Cite this pageRepoQuarry. “Hunspell.” Checked 15 Oct 2026. https://repoquarry.dev/projects/hunspell

How much of Grammarly does it replace?

1 of 5 jobs. Spelling only, as a library and terminal tool; no grammar, style or AI features.

Grammar and spelling checks Partial replacement

Style and clarity suggestions Not covered

AI rewriting and tone changes Not covered

Works in the browser and other apps Not covered

Plagiarism check Not covered

For style and clarity suggestions, AI rewriting and tone changes, works in the browser and other apps, plagiarism check, see other Grammarly alternatives. You may also need to build an interface, an API server and hosting yourself.

Facts, with sources

Every answer links to where we found it. We read the documentation; we did not install it.

Report a correction

QuestionAnswerSourceChecked

Runs on my machine? Yes, library and command-line tool Hunspell is a free spell checker and morphological analyzer library and command-line tool github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago

Code licence Tri-licensed LGPL, GPL or MPL (copyleft choices) licensed under LGPL/GPL/MPL tri-license. github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago

Model weights licence No model weights; dictionaries are separate files with their own licences github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago

Commercial use Yes, copyleft conditions of the chosen licence apply; check each dictionary's licence github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago

Paid services needed? None required github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago

Hardware Not documented Know the answer? —

Operating systems Linux and macOS build instructions; Windows via MSYS2 or Cygwin Compiling with Mingw64 and MSYS2 github.com · hunspell#compiling-on-windows ↗ 1d ago

Setup effort Hard per the README (build from source with autotools); dictionaries installed separately g++ make autoconf automake autopoint libtool github.com · hunspell#readme ↗ 1d ago