Writing Apps: Fluent vs. Rewrite Bar

I’m currently covering apps on sale at BundleHunt. Many of these are new to me, and steep discounts are a good excuse to try tools you might otherwise ignore — or to fill gaps in a workflow you didn’t realize had gaps.

First up is Fluent, an AI-powered writing assistant that handles translation, grammar, spelling, and style suggestions. The app I’ve been using for the past year for similar tasks is Rewrite Bar. They aren’t clones, but they definitely live in the same neighborhood.

Features in Common With Rewrite Bar

Both apps are aimed at people who don’t want to keep copy-pasting text into a ChatGPT window every five minutes.

• Works in any app — email, browser fields, notes, and pretty much anywhere you can type
• Hotkey-driven — minimal UI interruption
• BYOK — bring your own API key if you want control over costs and models
• Local model support — privacy-friendly options
• Custom actions and prompts — designed with power users in mind
• macOS-native design — keyboard-first workflows feel natural

How They Differ

Rewrite Bar feels exactly like what it is: a tool. You invoke it, issue a command, review the result, and move on. The workflow is linear and quickly becomes muscle memory. It stays out of your way. It supports session history, versioning, and some iterative editing in its review window. If you don’t want to manage API keys or models, Rewrite Bar also offers a subscription that includes model access. A lifetime license is $29 if you bring your own model, and it includes 35K AI credits to get started.

Translate, Magic Refine, Fix Grammar, Make Concise Summarize, Paraphrase Text, Explain Like I'm 5, Continue Writing

Fluent, by contrast, presents a smart panel you interact with directly. That panel can stay persistent or disappear depending on your preference. The experience feels less like firing off commands and more like working alongside an assistant. Fluent is context-aware, supports back-and-forth conversation, and allows chaining actions together into something closer to a workflow than a single command.

Fluent also includes RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). In plain terms, that means the model doesn’t rely only on its training data — it can reference files you provide to generate responses. You can organize these files into areas like projects, emails, or a catch-all bucket for your writing style. In practice, that means it can use past examples as context rather than guessing blindly. If you’re writing a billing summary, for example, it can reference previous invoices to match tone and structure.

Everything you add to Fluent stays on your Mac. Nothing is stored in the cloud. The output quality largely depends on the quality of the material you feed it — garbage in, garbage out still applies.

It’s worth clarifying what Fluent is not. This isn’t a local, continually learning replacement for ChatGPT. It isn’t training a model on your data or improving itself over time. It simply retrieves relevant information from your files and uses it as context for each request.

Fluent’s regular price is $29.99 on the Mac App Store. Right now, it’s on sale at BundleHunt for $4.99

There’s a broader pattern worth noticing here: AI writing tools are starting to split into two camps. One camp gives you fast, one-shot utilities that stay invisible until needed. The other tries to become a persistent collaborator that remembers context and rides along with your workflow. Which one fits depends less on features and more on how you actually write — quick surgical edits versus ongoing conversation with your tools.