Dock vs Hemingway
The Hemingway Editor is a readability meter that makes your prose tighter. Dock is a writing tool that helps you produce and cite it. Different jobs, and both worth understanding.
The Hemingway Editor does one thing and does it cleanly: it grades your readability. Paste in your text and it highlights long sentences, passive voice, adverbs, and complicated words, then gives you a grade level. The free web app has helped a lot of people write tighter, and the paid Plus tier adds AI rewriting on top.
Dock is a different kind of tool. It is where the writing happens, with real citations, drafting assistance, and export. Comparing them is like comparing a bathroom scale to a kitchen. Both useful. Very different jobs.
Hemingway measures. It takes prose you have already written and tells you, in color, where it is hard to read. That is genuinely valuable feedback, and the free version gives it away.
Dock produces. It helps you draft the document, find and cite real sources, revise with tracked changes, and export it. Readability is one small concern inside a much larger workflow.
| Hemingway Editor | Dock | |
|---|---|---|
| Core job | Measure and tighten readability | Write, cite, and finish documents |
| Readability scoring | Its whole purpose, very good | Not a readability meter |
| Drafting help | Plus tier adds AI rewriting | Approve-first improve, rewrite, expand, shorten |
| Citations | None | Seven styles from a real paper index |
| Document workflow | Single text pane | Editor with track changes, versions, export |
| Browser extension | No | Yes, in any text box |
| Agent access | No | Command line and MCP |
| Price | Free web app; Plus around $10/mo (roughly $100 to $150 a year) | Free tier; Unlimited $144/yr ($12/mo annually) |
The Hemingway Plus figures vary by plan and promotion, so treat the range above as approximate and check the current price before buying.
- It is free, and the free version is the good part. The core readability highlighting costs nothing and needs no account. For a quick tightening pass, that is hard to beat.
- It is gloriously simple. One pane, clear colors, instant feedback. No setup, no features to learn. The simplicity is the product.
- It builds a real skill. Watching Hemingway flag your passive voice and filler over time teaches you to write more plainly, even when you are not using it.
If all you want is to make existing prose clearer, Hemingway is excellent and Dock is more than you need.
- It writes with you. Hemingway tells you what is wrong; Dock helps you produce the text in the first place, with approve-first drafting actions and autocomplete.
- It cites. Hemingway has no concept of a source. Dock retrieves real papers with DOIs and formats them in seven styles inside the document.
- It is a full workspace. Track changes, version history, voice dictation, publishing, and export to Word, PDF, and Markdown.
- It reaches your other tools. A Chrome extension in any text box, plus command-line and MCP access to the same documents.
Pick Hemingway if you want a free, dead-simple readability check on writing you have already done, and that is the whole job.
Pick Dock if you need to produce the writing, cite sources, or revise and export a real document. Plenty of writers use Hemingway as a final readability pass on work they drafted in Dock; the two coexist well.
Write something free in Dock at Start Writing, or see the full editor at Dock Editor.