Photo by Augusto Zambonato

Plagiarism, the curse on our age of information. It’s either done by transcribing someone else’s work word-for-word without attributions or presenting their ideas as your own. No matter the cause or method, it is a practice that disregards the efforts of the author and closes all the doors that open to an immense potential for creative ideas.

But there’s a spell for every curse! And this is exactly why plagiarism detection softwares exist. They scan, analyze, compare, and detect the similarities between contents for you. Their usage ranges from students and teachers who scan assignments to large companies in the publishing industry because, unfortunately, plagiarism can be anywhere.

So, here are 10 free plagiarism checkers at your service:

1- Quetext

Quetext is truly a plagiarism website with its blog, articles, and recommendations all about plagiarism. The site welcomes you with a nice interface and it claims to run a contextual analysis by using the DeepSearch™ technology and detect hidden plagiarism with its fuzzy matching.

You can give it a try by pasting a text up to 2.500 words but after that, the website asks for a sign-up to continue. So there are some limitations to its free version but it’s still an easy-to-use, practical website for simple projects.



2- Duplichecker

Duplichecker is a popular, easy-to-use website where you can just go to their link, paste your text or upload a file and check for plagiarism and grammar mistakes. The software also detects which websites show similarities to your text and offers a paraphrasing tool.

It allows for up to one thousand words for its free version and has various pricing options in its pro memberships.


3- Grammarly

Grammarly is mainly an AI-powered hunter for grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors in your texts. And it has a useful free version for this too.

But the website also has another weapon: a plagiarism detector. Although it serves its purpose and traces signs of this crime to a reasonable extent, in its free version, it only detects the level of plagiarism and offers limited information. But it’s still a nice tool if you don’t want to dig too deep.



4- Copyleaks

Copyleaks is another plagiarism checker that detects identical, slightly changed, paraphrased, or omitted words and provides you with all the details you could need.

Its free version limits you to 10 pages per month and you can only try it out after you sign up.


5- PaperRater

PaperRater is an AI-based, free resource that offers grammar & spelling checks, proofreadings, and of course, plagiarism detection but it’s built mainly for academic papers, which means it serves more efficiently to students or teachers. The site also provides you with feedback on how to improve your writing and directs you to the related articles on their website.

The free version has 50 submissions and 10 plagiarism checks per month and it’s limited to 3,000 words. But overall, it’s a useful tool.


6- Plagium

Plagium is a platform that offers quick/deep search options and in-depth reports for small and medium-sized businesses. And with its Google Docs integration, you can detect any unintentional plagiarism within your texts.

The website allows up to 1000 words in its free version and requires signing up for analyzing URLs and files.


7- Plagiarism Checker X

Plagiarism checker X requires a download to start using the basic version. Its features include an easy-to-use interface, color-coded comparisons, support for multiple file formats and a “flip” feature which allows you to get to the actual source of the plagiarized content.



8- Search Engine Reports

Search engine reports is a relatively fast, uncomplicated website that doesn't demand creating an account. The free version allows up to a decent deal of 1500 words and there are no limitations as to the number of files you can upload.

Although it doesn't offer some fancy graphs, it’s a helpful tool with the links that take you to the source of the plagiarized content and percentages that show you the text’s uniqueness.


9- Plagiarism Detector.net

Plagiarism detector offers grammar check, paraphrasing, text comparison, and a reverse image search tool that can be helpful for detecting art plagiarism.

The site’s basic version limits you to a thousand words but you can scan as many documents as you like.



10- Small SEO Tools

Small SEO Tools is literally an all-in-one website with its plagiarism detector, paraphrasing tool, grammar/spell check, word counter, file converter, a bunch of keyword tools, etc. Everything one could need when it comes to text analyses, basically.

Its free version allows up to 1000 words and is relatively fast compared to its counterparts. Also, the site promises to not store your text or files.


When utilizing these free resources, please keep in mind that they have their limitations and may not prove to be a hundred percent accurate.

Therefore, these are recommended mainly for students, small companies, or for basic individual use.

We end our article with the words I wrote a long time ago:

“The borrowed thoughts just like the borrowed money, only showcase the poverty bestowed on the borrower.”

No I’m joking :D This is a quote from Lady Marguerite Blessington, an Irish novelist who lived in the 19th century.