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Access to the LanguageTool browser extension will become paid in 2 weeks, unless you are using a local model or selfhost it (languagetool.org)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I got a banner warning today linking to this page. It was announced a while back, but I either didn't see it or forgot.

We have made the difficult decision to limit the use of LanguageTool’s browser extension to Premium users only. The rise of generative AI has made it more challenging to sustainably monetize our offering. A majority of users use our products for free, and the relatively small percentage of Premium subscribers is all that is subsidizing our continuously increasing server costs. To improve our Premium experience and to sustain our business model, we’ll be making the LanguageTool browser extension available exclusively for paying customers.

The key bit for people who can selfhost:

Yes. If you are a developer, you can still host and run your own instance of LanguageTool’s server. The browser extension will continue to work as it currently does for users who use it with their own server.

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[–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

YunoHost application is here: https://apps.yunohost.org/app/languagetool

Docs for installing LanguageTool manually are here: https://dev.languagetool.org/http-server - version 20260528 works on Debian 13 under WSL, needs openjdk-25-jre-headless and the --public option. The extension settings have a localhost option, I didn't have to change anything else.

Note that premium as of today costs $2.50 per month if you pay for two years in advance. Running LanguageTool on a laptop isn't very fast for languages other than English, so paying them for the cloud might provide a better experience than self-hosting.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Thanks a lot! I’d explore that. I don’t know about others here, but I’m not even considering a non-self-hosted solution. But it’s great to know upfront that it would require a powerful server to have languages other than English.

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