# Vale: Linter for Prose

> Source: <https://github.com/vale-cli/vale>
> Published: 2026-08-23 08:00:02+00:00

**Vale** is a command-line tool that brings code-like linting to prose. It's ** fast**,

**cross-platform**(Windows, macOS, and Linux), and

**highly customizable**.

Tip

**Try Vale CMS**: the hosted authoring layer for Vale. Build and maintain your style guide in the browser -- config, rules, vocabularies, dictionaries, filters, views, and templates -- with the real Vale engine linting live before you ship changes back to your repository.

Hi there! I'm

[@jdkato], the sole developer of Vale. If you'd like to help me dedicate more time todeveloping,documenting, andsupportingVale, feel free to donate through[GitHub Sponsors]or[Open Collective]. Any donation—big, small, one-time, or recurring—is greatly appreciated!

|
Mintlify |

An AI-native documentation platform built for developers.

Ships Vale as a built-in CI check.

**Promptless** Suggests doc updates when your product changes.Runs Vale on every doc its agents write.Sponsors at $1,000 and above get a dedicated page on

[vale.sh].

Thanks to

[DigitalOcean]for providing hosting credits for[Vale Studio].

[Deploy now on DigitalOcean](https://m.do.co/c/dc0864bb87fd) and get $200 in free credits!

-
**Support for markup**: Vale has a rich understanding of many[markup formats](https://docs.vale.sh/formats), allowing it to avoid syntax-related false positives and intelligently exclude code snippets from prose-related rules. -
A

**highly customizable**[extension system](https://docs.vale.sh/topics/styles): Vale is capable of enforcing*your style*—be it a standard[editorial style guide](https://vale.sh/explorer)or a custom in-house set of rules (see[examples](https://vale.sh/#adopters)). -
**Easy-to-install**, stand-alone binaries: Unlike other tools, Vale doesn't require you to install and configure a particular programming language and its related tooling (such as Python/pip or Node.js/npm).

See the [documentation](https://vale.sh) for more information.

NOTE: While all of the options listed below are open-source (CLI-based) linters for prose, their implementations and features vary significantly. And so, the "best" option will depends on your specific needs and preferences.

| Tool | Extensible | Checks | Supports Markup | Built With | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vale | Yes (via YAML) | spelling, style | Yes (Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, HTML, XML, Org) | Go | MIT |
| textlint | Yes (via JavaScript) | spelling, style | Yes (Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, HTML, Re:VIEW) | JavaScript | MIT |
| RedPen | Yes (via Java) | spelling, style | Yes (Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, Textile, Re:VIEW, and LaTeX) | Java | Apache-2.0 |
| write-good | Yes (via JavaScript) | style | No | JavaScript | MIT |
| proselint | No | style | No | Python | BSD 3-Clause |
| Joblint | No | style | No | JavaScript | MIT |
| alex | No | style | Yes (Markdown) | JavaScript | MIT |

The exact definition of "Supports Markup" varies by tool but, in general, it means that the format is understood at a higher level than a regular plain-text file (for example, features like excluding code blocks from spell check).

Extensibility means that there's a built-in means of creating your own rules without modifying the original source code.

All benchmarking was performed using the open-source [hyperfine](https://github.com/sharkdp/hyperfine) tool on a MacBook Pro (2.9 GHz Intel Core i7):

```
hyperfine --warmup 3 '<command>'
```

The corpus IDs in the above plots—`gitlab`

and `ydkjs`

—correspond to the following files: