Plagiarism: Applications

Top 10 Free Plagiarism Detection Tools

Editor's note: We have originally written and published this article in November 2013. Thanks to your useful suggestions and our own following of the latest developments in the fast paced field of technology, we have updated this piece in October 2015 in the hope that you will keep finding it useful. Thank you for sharing! 

The act of taking someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own defines the concept of “plagiarism”. As it is shown by the growing educational concerns, plagiarism has now become an integral part of our digital lives as technology, with the billions of information it gives us access to, led to the exacerbation of this phenomenon.

1. DupliChecker 
   • Pros:
     • 100% free.
     • Extremely easy to use.
     • Has the options of copy-pasting the text, entering the URL of the content destination required to be checked, or uploading a text file.
     • Registered users can perform 50 searches per day.
   • Cons: 
     • Unregistered users can perform only 1 search per day.
   • Paid Version:  
     • Not available.
2. CopyLeaks 
   • Pros: 
     • Offers entire website plagiarism scan.
     • Finds content duplication in more that 60 trillion pages over the internet.
     • Support of multiple file formats in any language.
     • CopyLeaks API allows you to integrate CopyLeaks service and include it as part of your product.
   • Cons: 
     • Only for online content.
     • You need to create an account to use it.
   • Paid Version: 
     • Free of charge at the moment, will soon add premium subscription to the service.
3. PaperRater
   • Pros: 
     • Offers 3 tools: Grammar checking, plagiarism detection, and writing suggestions.
     • It is developed and maintained by linguistics professionals and graduate students.
     • Readability statistics.
     • Title validation.
   • Cons: 
     • Cannot save reports.
   • Paid version: 
     • Accepts longer documents (up to 6000 words).
     • Faster processing.
     • No banner ads.
     • Ability to upload documents.
     • $7.95/mo (with annual payment).
4. Plagiarisma 
   • Pros: 
     • Offers a free download of plagiarism software for Windows.
     • 190+ languages supported.
     • Searches website content from a URL.
   • Cons: 
     • The report is for exact matches only.
     • The Synonymizer tool (rewrites sentences with synonyms to generate unique text) facilitates plagiarism.
     • Even when registered you cannot scan documents for more than 3 times per day.
   • Paid version: 
     • Unlimited plagiarism checker with task scheduler.
     • Starts at $5.00 per month.
5. PlagiarismChecker
   • Pros: 
     • 100% free.
     • Easy and detailed instructions.
     • Ideal for educators to check whether a student's paper has been copied from the internet.
     • The "Author" option allows for checking if others have plagiarized your work online.
     • Does not require any download or installation.
   • Cons: 
     • It searches phrases separately, which means that you need to hit “Enter” after each phrase.
   • Paid Version:
     • Not available.
6. Plagium
   • Pros: 
     • Very easy to use (via copy paste).
     • Scans up to 5,000 words at a time.
     • Perfect for a quick search on the web or social media.
   • Cons: 
     • Free features are limited (e.g. you need to pay to upload files).
   • Paid Version: 
     • From $0.004 to $0.08 USD by 1,000 characters for Quick search, Deep search, File search, or Alert.
7. PlagScan 
   • Pros: 
     • Updates you about the progress continuously.
     • Does not require any download or installation.
   • Cons: 
     • Scan is limited to 1000 at a time.
     • Rather complicated interface.
   • Paid Version: 
     • Variable plans for private users, schools, universities, and companies.
8. PlagTracker
   • Pros: 
     • Very quick to scan more than 20 million academic works for any plagiarized copy.
     • Clear instructions on how to use it.
     • Offers report with details about your work.
   • Cons: 
     • Not 100% accurate; you may need to use an extra plagiarism detection tool to make sure your content is authentic (note: Never check through only one service anyhow).
   • Paid Version: 
     • Checks a larger database of documents.
     • Grammar check.
     • $14.99 USD per month.
9. Quetext 
   • Pros: 
     • 100% free.
     • Easy to use interface.
     • Unlimited usage without having to create an account or download software.
   • Cons: 
     • You cannot upload files, only copy and paste text.
   • Paid Version: 
     • Not available.
10. Viper
    • Pros: 
      • 100% free.
      • Scans your document through more than 10 billion resources such as academic essays and other online sources.
      • Offers side-by-side comparisons for plagiarism.
      • Scans against essays on your computer.
    • Cons: 
      • Requires a download.
      • Is available to Microsoft Windows users only.
    • Paid Version: 
      • Not available.