Originality.ai vs Copyscape: The Best Comparison Guide 2024

Last Updated on May 11, 2024 by Andrew Shih

With the uprise of writer assisting and AI writer tools, how do you know your work is original?

As a blog owner or content manager, you know the importance of original content. Unfortunately, there is a sharp rise in AI content creation tools. How do you know if your freelancer writers or content creators used AI to generate content?

Google considers AI-generated content as spammy content. If your article is created by AI that simply regurgitates information that adds no value, your website can be penalized by Google.

That has led to various companies developing tools to check the originality and plagiarism of any content. Originality.ai and Copyscape are unique tools that many content creators use to determine whether their work is original, unique, and high-quality.

There are several similarities and differences between Copyscape and Originality.ai. This article will take a deep dive and help you better understand both tools.

Disclaimer:  Some of the links below are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to register or make a purchase, we may earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please review the full affiliate disclaimer. 

Originality.ai and Copyscape Comparison

If you are in a rush and are just looking for a quick comparison between the two tools, here is a summary table.

If you are interested in learning more about both tools and reviewing the user interface, please read on.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: What is it?

What is Originality.ai?

Originality.AI is a revolutionary tool combining natural language processing (NLP) algorithms and machine learning (ML) techniques to detect plagiarism and AI-generated content.

The tool offers helpful insights into the quality of the content produced, allowing the content owner to spot potential problems and confirm the work is original.

What is Copyscape?

Copyscape is a popular tool that detects plagiarism. The tool takes the given content or URL and compares it against the web content.

Copyscape checks and shows you duplicate content on the web, and you can review the result with a word-by-word comparison next to your content. Colored highlighting will show text blocks that match your site’s text within the comparison.

It is commonly used to determine the originality of the content in articles, texts, and web pages, by outlining the URLs with similar content, if there is any.

Like Originality.ai, the tool helps writers, content creators, and website owners publish original work.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: How to get started?

How to start Originality.ai

Below are the steps to get started:

Step #1: Choose Your Pricing Plan

Decide between a pay-as-you-go or subscription pricing plan based on your usage needs. The monthly subscription is a cost-effective choice if you anticipate checking content regularly. Opt for a one-time fee for occasional use, providing you with a generous 2-year window to utilize your credits before expiration.

Step #2: Set Up Your Account

To access Originality.ai’s features, create an account by providing essential details such as your email, name, and password. An email verification link will be sent to your provided email for account confirmation.

Step #3: Dive into Tool Usage

Once your account is verified, use the Originality.ai platform to analyze your content. Whether you’re scanning a website or a specific piece of content, the platform is designed for user-friendly content checks.

Step #4: Evaluate Content Results

Originality.ai furnishes a comprehensive assessment, offering both a plagiarism score and an AI detection score. This dual evaluation assists in gauging the originality level of your content, empowering you to make informed decisions based on the provided insights.

How to start Copyscape

Copyscape offers limited free tools with limited functionalities and a premium version.

Free Version

You can get started with the free version without opening an account. The free tool lets you specify a URL, and it will scan the entire internet and determine if the content is plagiarized.

Premium Version

Copyscape’s premium version will provide much more functionalities:

• Check offline content via copy and paste to compare against the internet.
• Check plagiarism by uploading PDF and Word documents.
• Website scan with up to 10,000 pages with batch search.
• Managing your online plagiarism responses and cases.
• Working with your team and editors.
• Exclude websites from the search results.
• Use API to check plagiarism automatically.
• Check duplication within your content.

Step #1: Sign up for an account

To use the premium version, you will have to create an account by providing your name, password, and email.

Step #2: Purchase Credit

Once you are in the account, you will need to purchase credit before you can use the premium tools. The minimum purchase will be $5.00. If you pay using PayPal, the minimum is $10.00.

One important note is that the credit expires after 12 months if you do not use it.

Step #3: Check your content

Once you have made the payment, you can start using various premium tools.

You can simply copy and paste text or type in the URL to start checking for plagiarism.

Or you can upload your content to the Copyscape platform. Copyscape accepts various file types, including .doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt, and .RTF.

Step #4: Review the results

Copyscape will provide you with a report containing information about any plagiarism detected. The report will also have a list of matches, which are the URLs of any pages that contain matching content

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: Plagiarism checker

Originality.ai Plagiarism

Since Originality.ai is the new kid on the block, we want to make sure it can deliver what it promised.

In the quest to test this, one of the simple tests we did was copying an article from Entrepreneur and checking it with the tool. Originality.ai accurately identified plagiarism and pointed out the correct URL with the same content. We conclude that Originality.ai can detect plagiarism successfully.

Originality.ai can provide a side-by-side comparison with syntax highlights for plagiarized content, and correctly identify the matched content on the internet. While Originality.ai correctly attributed 100% as plagiarized content, the tool should have highlighted all the text in red. Instead, only about half of the content is highlighted.

Copyscape Plagiarism

Copyscape is a reputable online plagiarism checker. No doubt!

Copyscape checks plagiarism by scanning the entire internet and linking the plagiarized work with respective URLs. The tool cross-examines texts for similarity and produces a list of URLs where the text appears to be the same.

If you pay for the premium version, you can perform a search using offline content via text or file upload. This feature will help you validate content before publishing online and search via a URL.

In our test, we copied and pasted text from the Entrepreneur article into Copyscape.

Copyscape identifies 5 possible sources of plagiarism with the correct Entrepreneur article listed at the top.

You can click on Compare Text, Copyscape will provide a side-by-side comparison with highlights for plagiarized texts. Copyscape was able to highlight the plagiarized text more accurately in our testing.

Our Verdict

Originality.ai has emerged as a strong contender for plagiarism checkers. Both Copyscape and Originality.ai are able to detect plagiarism accurately and point to the source on the web correctly.

Both tools provide syntax highlighting capability. However, Copyscape is more accurate in highlighting plagiarized text than Originality.ai in our testing.

Copyscape also supports uploading with multiple file formats, which Originality.ai does not support.

After all, Copyscape is a mature tool for checking plagiarism and still maintains the lead in the plagiarism checker.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: AI Content Detection

Originality.ai AI content detection

One outstanding feature of Originality.ai is its ability to detect AI-generated content, which is unmatched in the marketplace.

Through a test we carried out after generating content through Rytr.me, the tool perfectly detected that the content was AI-created.

We used Ryte.me to generate three variations of AI content and put them to the test.

Origionality.ai gave scores of 100%, 99%, and 100% for the 3 variations, indicating that the tool accurately detected AI-generated content.

Originaity.ai can highlight text that is likely generated by AI. In our case, Originality.ai was able to highlight all the text correctly since they are completely created AI.

AI detection works a bit differently than plagiarism detection. If the block of text is exactly the same, there is a 100% certainty that the text is plagiarized. Originality.ai detection works more like a probability at a sliding scale and it is represented using a heatmap.

In our testing, Originality.ai is very certain that the content is generated by AI and was highlighted correctly in dark red.

Copyscape AI content detection

Copyscape cannot detect AI-generated content at this point.

Our Verdict

Originality.ai is a clear winner for AI content detection because Copyscape has no such feature.

In our testing, Originality.ai was able to detect AI-generated content successfully with correct scoring. However, Originality.ai warns that the tool can produce false positives, and the accuracy is about 94%.

It would be best not to conclude too quickly based on one score.

Unfortunately, Originality.ai is not able to produce a full report with highlights where content is potentially created by AI.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: Pricing and credit utilization

Originality.ai Pricing

When you sign up with Originality.ai, you will receive 500 credits to get started. With 100 words per credit, that’s 50,000 words you can check for free with Originality.ai.

If you check for plagiarism and AI together, it will take 2 credits for every 100 words.

You can add additional credit at any time, with a minimum of $20.

Originality.ai gives users the latitude to purchase credits in bulk and use them any time they want without expiry.

The model is suitable for content creators who wish to check a few or many pieces at their convenience. Users will purchase the credits and use them at their own pace without worries about the expiration date and waste of money.

Copyscape Pricing

You must purchase credit if you want to use Copyscape’s premium feature. The minimum payment amount is $5. And if you wish to purchase using PayPal, the minimum amount is $10.

Each search will cost a minimum of $0.03 for up to 200 words and $0.01 per 100 words afterward.

Keep in mind that there is an expiration date for the credit. You must use the credit within 12 months. Otherwise, it will expire.

Our Verdict

While Originality.ai and Copyscape operate on a credit-based pricing model, Origionality.ai is more generous and offers 500 credits to test the full functionality for up to 50,000 words. 

Copyscape has a higher upfront charge of $0.03 that scans up to 200 words. Originality.ai has a flat rate of 100 words per credit.

If you only have 100 words to scan, Copyscape is 3 times more expensive than Originality.ai. However, if you have a lot of words to scan each time, the difference is an extra $0.02 per scan.

More importantly, there is an expiration date for your credits with Copyscape, and you must use it within 12 months. Originality.ai does not impose such restrictions.

Overall, we feel Originality.ai is more generous with the pricing.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: User interface

Originality.ai User Interface

Originality.ai has a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy to check your content for plagiarism and AI content detection.

The UI is self-explanatory. You can do a content scan, website scan, manage your team, add credits, and manage your account using the sidebar navigation.

Copyscape User Interface

CopyScape also has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to navigate and use the tool. The interface includes a clear and simple for checking your content, a detailed report that shows any plagiarism detected, and a list of matches, including the URLs of any pages containing matching content.

Our Verdict

Both tools offer a simple interface that is very intuitive to use. It’s most likely down to personal preference, but the Originality.ai menu navigation is set up logically and looks more modern than Copyscape’s user interface.

We feel that Originality.ai’s user interface is slightly better than Copyscape.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: Website Scan

Originality.ai Website Scan

The web scan feature is very easy to use. You Simply put in the domain name, and the tool will scan up to 1000 pages. After the scan is finished, the report will show the URL, word count, plagiarism, and AI detection scores.

The downside of this web scan feature is that it will scan categories and tags and take up extra credits if you use features within your website.

Copyscape Website Scan

Copyscape offers a more granular control with site scan.

You can provide a single URL, a list of URLs, or your site map. It offers site owners better control and does not waste valuable credit.

Our Verdict

Copyscape offers the site owner greater control over the site scan with multiple scan options. Therefore the site owners do not have to waste valuable credit for scanning pages, categories, and tags, that have no value.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: API Integration

Originality.ai API

Originality.ai offers an API solution that you can integrate with your website. You can check your credit and run AI detection using a text string or URL.

You can send requests up to 100 times per minute. If you need to run checks more frequently, you can contact Originality.ai to make an exception.

Overall, we feel the document is easy to read. Each API has input and output examples, and the API seems very intuitive for a developer to integrate.

Copyscape API

Copyscope also offers API solutions for various programming languages. However, we feel the documentation could have been better organized.

There are APIs for checking credits and integration for plagiarism validation using text and URL modes. However, there are additional APIs for managing private index responses. We feel there is a steeper learning curve for using Copyscape API.

Our Verdict

Both tools offer API integration for checking the content originality. However, we feel Originality’s API and documentation is easier to understand and likely easier for a developer to implement.

Copyscape has documentation to support various programming languages, but we feel it can be organized a bit better. There are also more API function hooks for managing private indexes, which introduce a steeper learning curve.

Originality.ai vs Copyscape: Chrome Extension

Originality.ai Chrome Extension

Originality.ai currently only offers very basic Chrome extension functions.

The plugin allows you to copy and paste text and perform a scan.

And it will output the AI detection score.

Copyscape Chrome Extension

Copyscope does not offer a Chrome extension.

Our Verdict

Originality.ai holds a small advantage because it supports the Chrome extension, although the functionality is fairly basic and does not add much value to tools on its website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Originality.ai and Copyscape are powerful tools that check for plagiarism and originality. However, they all have strengths and weaknesses.

Copyscape is still a better tool to use if you just need to check for plagiarism. Copyscape can highlight the syntax and produce a report that’s easy to read and spot areas of plagiarism.

If you’re looking to check for plagiarism and detect AI content at the same time, Originality.ai is the best tool to use. The interface is simple to use, the price is more affordable, and the credit does not expire. You can learn all the details about Originality.ai in this review.

Remember that Originality.ai is not perfect and false positives and negatives can occur. While the score is quite accurate, you should take the scores with a grain of salt.

You can get started with both tools for free. Why not give it a try?