If you’re a website owner looking for translation tools online, you’re probably familiar with how difficult it is to find the right one to fit your specific needs.

Among a variety of choices, Smartling comes out as a preferred option for businesses seeking comprehensive solutions in language translation services and localization. This tool caters primarily to mid-market and large organizations, particularly those with vast, complex translation requirements like multiple content types or translations into many different languages.

However, even if Smartling is the right option for many businesses, the same might not be true for yours. This is why it’s so important to take your time and research alternatives, comparing their features and pricing plans to find the perfect fit for your unique translation and localization needs.

In this article, we’ll give you a detailed overview of Smartling’s features and pricing and offer you some worthy alternatives so you can find the option that fits you best.

Understanding Smartling: A Comprehensive Overview

‍Smartling is trusted in the Translation Management Systems (TMS) realm. Its goal is to streamline the translation and localization process, making it a preferred option for businesses looking to reach global audiences.

Here are some of the key features you can expect from Smartling:

• Cloud-Based Platform: Smartling uses a central system in the cloud that can automatically manage translations. It can assign tasks smartly, use machine learning to make translations better over time, and check the quality automatically to make sure translations are done well.
• Visual Translation Editor: Smartling’s Visual Context feature allows translators to see how the translated content looks in real-time. This helps prevent mistakes and ensures the translated text fits well with the design, creating a good experience for people worldwide.
• Human Translators: Smartling makes it easier for teams and translators to communicate with each other, with tools for conversations and immediate alerts. This helps produce consistent, high-quality translations that match your brand’s tone of voice.
• Integrated Analytics Tools: Smartling includes tools that track everything about your translation projects, such as how much has been translated, the status of translations, and how much you're spending. This gives you a clear view of how your project is going.
• Budgeting Tools for Translation Projects: These tools help you understand your translation costs, warn you if you're going to spend more than planned, and offer ways to spend less without losing quality.
• Integration with Useful Tools: Smartling integrates with popular platforms such as WordPress, Shopify, Adobe Experience Manager, and HubSpot, making it a compatible choice for most businesses.

Smartling is great for medium to large teams that need advanced translation features, such as those needed for software and mobile apps. It offers a wide range of features that can grow with your business.

On the pricing front, Smartling offers three distinct plans: Core, Growth, and Enterprise.

A free demo is available to test out Smartling’s core features, and you’ll need to complete this in order to access pricing information.

Exploring Top Smartling Alternatives for Global Businesses

Even though Smartling is a translation management system, it doesn’t automatically make it the optimum choice for every business. The right fit for most goes beyond functionality – it equally depends on the specifics of their projects, the size of the team involved, and, ultimately, the budget.

As Jeanne Fricaudet, Product Manager at Weglot, highlights:

"In the age of globalization, the ability to communicate with a diverse audience in their native language is fundamental. The choice of your translation and localization tool can directly impact your business growth. It's not just about the capability of translating words but also about the user-friendliness, integration simplicity, and the quality of support you receive. Every detail matters when choosing a solution that fits your purpose."

Let’s explore how Weglot, Lokalise, Transifex, and Phrase can serve as alternatives to Smartling, taking into account their standout features, ease of use, ideal use cases, and investment needed.

Weglot

‍Weglot is a cloud-based website translation solution that offers a comprehensive suite of tools to translate, display, and manage your multilingual website. It's designed to streamline the translation process, offering features like automatic translations, manual editing options, and support for 110+ languages. Above all, Weglot is built to make the translation process easy for everyone – no need for any technical knowledge.

Key Features

• Automatic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Translations: Weglot’s automatic translation feature uses a combination of machine translation providers (Google, DeepL, and Microsoft) to provide quick, accurate translations into 110+ supported languages. Weglot automatically detects and translates all content on your website, so you don’t have to go through everything manually.
• Manual Editing and Control: Users have full control over their translations with the option to manually edit and refine them. This feature is crucial for ensuring the accuracy and context-appropriate translations, particularly for nuanced or industry-specific content. For example, in the food industry, some meals and ingredients wouldn’t be directly translated word-for-word – “filet mignon” in French shouldn’t be translated to “cute fillet” in British English.

• Multilingual SEO: Weglot automatically adds hreflang tags to your website, ensuring that translated pages are indexed by search engines and pages are served to searchers in the correct language. Other important SEO features include metadata translation and dedicated language URLs for all the translated content.
• Browser Language Redirection: Visitors can be automatically redirected to a version of the website in their native language based on their browser settings, enhancing user experience and engagement.
• Glossary: You can customize Weglot’s built-in translation glossary to automate the translation of specific phrases or omit the translation of brand names. This feature helps websites perfect their localization strategies and capture the translation nuances of each language pair.

• Unified Dashboard: With Weglot, you can control all translation projects from a single dashboard. Access important features such as the Visual Editor, glossary, URL slugs, and more.

• Professional Human Translators: If any of the translated strings aren’t up to your requirements and you don’t have a dedicated translation team in-house, you can easily add translations to your cart and order a professional translation from within the Weglot dashboard.

Ease of Use

Weglot takes just a few minutes to set up on any of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMSs), including WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and more. With its cohesive dashboard and user-friendly interface, the tool requires minimal technical knowledge, making it accessible to users who are not developers.

Suitable For

Weglot is suitable for any business looking to expand its global presence, such as:

• eCommerce platforms seeking to reach a wider international market.
• Educational websites needing to provide content in multiple languages.
• Small to medium-sized businesses aiming to enhance their global outreach.
• Large corporations requiring efficient management of multilingual content across different regions.
• Any business that only needs translation for their website and won’t need any of the mobile and web app translation services that Smartling offers.

Pricing

Weglot's pricing structure is based on the number of words and languages, but all plans include automated translation:

• Starter: $17 per month for 10,000 words, 1 translated language, auto redirection, glossary, multilingual SEO, and editing control.
• Business: $32 per month for 50,000 words, 3 translated languages, and everything in “Starter”.
• Pro: $87 per month for 200,000 words, 5 translated languages, all the included features in the lower plans plus team members, translation requests statistics, page views statistics, and translated URLs.
• Advanced: $329 for 1,000,000 words, 10 translated languages, all the features in the lower tiers plus tone of voice, custom languages, and export & import.
• Extended and Enterprise: The “Extended” plan is $769 per month with 5,000,000 words and 20 languages, adding top-level domain and translation memory. The “Enterprise” plan is custom, and you need to contact the sales team for more information.

A free version is available to test Weglot’s core features, which include media translation, glossary rules, visitor language redirection, and more. You can also see Weglot on your website through a 10-day free trial.

Lokalise

Another notable Smartling alternative is Lokalise. With a powerful set of functionalities and a resilient API, Lokalise offers comprehensive automation for localization management.

Key Features

• Translation Automation: AI-powered translations for high-quality, context-aware content. This includes translation memory, machine translation, and QA checks for quality assurance.
• Collaborative Workspace for Team Integration: Assign tasks to specific members and track the project progress easily.
• Dedicated Plugins: You can use Lokalise with Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch to facilitate translation during the design phase.
• Extensive Integrations: Connect with tools like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jira, and more to reduce the workload for developers.
• Content Localization: Works with various types of content such as web apps, customer service resources, documents, mobile apps, games, and marketing assets.

Ease of Use

Lokalise emphasizes a streamlined user experience, targeting both managers and developers. The platform offers a variety of tools and integrations to simplify the localization process. Its user interface is designed to be intuitive, making it easy to manage translation tasks.

Suitable For

Lokalise is well-suited for a wide range of businesses, such as:

• Software and web development, mobile apps, and gaming companies.
• Companies focusing on customer service, document translation, and marketing.

Pricing

There are four pricing tiers available:

• Start: $120 per month with features such as unlimited projects, collaborative web-based editor, tasks, and mobile software development kit.
• Essential: $230 per month, which comes with all the “Start” features plus glossary, screenshots, in-context editors, translation memory and history, and machine translations.
• Pro: $825 per month with all the features from “Start” and “Essential” and adding style guide, two-way Adobe XD, Sketch, and Figma plugins, and filter by screenshots.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for everything from the previous plans including a dedicated manager, SAML-based SSO, and audit logs.

Keep in mind that there could be extra charges if you exceed certain limits. The platform also provides AI translation as an add-on service, priced based on the volume of words translated.

Transifex

‍Transifex is a cloud-based localization management platform designed to help organizations efficiently launch product content in multiple languages. Particularly structured for groups with rapid development cycles, like businesses that have to put up regular software updates to their products, Transifex is a centralized location for managing materials like strings, video captions, landing pages, and more.

Key Features

• Localization Automation: Works with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) which is a system that updates and releases software to reduce manual work. This helps in quickly releasing content in different languages at the same time as new updates.
• Workflow & Progress Management: Helps in organizing and keeping track of the work of translating content into different languages. You can set up your own process and get detailed reports on how the work is going.
• Translation Quality Tools: Offers built-in linguistic tools like translation memory, machine translation, and translation checks to enhance translation quality and speed.
• Integrations: Compatible with popular tools and technologies, including GitHub/Bitbucket Sync, and supports over 40 file formats.
• API and Command-Line Interface: Provides advanced customization options for seamless integration into existing workflows.
• Online Translation Editor: An intuitive web-based interface for translators, supporting a variety of file formats.

Ease of Use

Transifex is recognized for its user-friendly interface, making it accessible even to non-technical team members. The platform's design and functionality are intuitive, ensuring smooth operation for a wide range of users. However, some users have reported issues with the platform's speed, noting that it can be slow, especially when handling a large number of files.

Suitable For

Transifex is suitable for a broad range of organizations, including:

• Small to large businesses looking for a scalable localization solution.
• Companies with rapid development cycles needing to integrate localization into their workflow.
• Organizations requiring a centralized platform for managing translation materials in large quantities or with diverse requirements.

Pricing

Transifex offers various pricing plans catering to different organizational needs and scales:

Pricing starts at $80/month for the "Basic" plan, which includes unlimited projects, translation memory, machine translation, and an online editor. The premium plan, which includes Transifex's automation features, glossaries, and bulk string editing, starts from $460/month, and an Enterprise plan is also available for businesses with more bespoke localization requirements. A free trial is also available to test the platform's features.

Phrase

‍Phrase (formerly known as Memsource) is a cloud-hosted translation management system designed for seamless and secure collaboration among translators, offering powerful yet simple translation tools.

Key Features

• Translation Memory: Stores past translations to facilitate quicker and more consistent future translations by leveraging previous work.
• Style Guide: Helps maintain consistency in tone and style across translations.
• In-Context Editor: Provides translators with the context of how the translation will appear, ensuring greater accuracy and relevance.
• API and Integrations: Offers a robust REST API for customization and integrates with numerous platforms and services like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Adobe Experience Manager, and many more.
• Machine Translation: Incorporates machine translation to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of the translation process.
• Extensive Permission Management: Allows for detailed control over who can access and edit translations, crucial for large teams and sensitive projects.
• Extensive Language Support: Support for over 500 languages and 50+ file types makes Phrase a versatile tool for a wide range of translation needs.

Ease of Use

Phrase scores highly on ease of use, with a user-friendly interface that simplifies translation management. Its cloud architecture allows for accessibility from multiple devices and locations. The CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) editor provides an intuitive experience with features like real-time checks and in-context previews.

For advanced users, Phrase offers a command-line interface – a feature that allows faster access and more control over the system.

Suitable For

• Freelancers who can benefit from the cloud-based CAT tool and its powerful features for efficient translation work.
• Translation agencies that need automated workflows, comprehensive reporting, and project management tools to enhance productivity and control.
• Businesses that want to centralize translation communication and processes and utilize translation memories for faster and more consistent translations.

Pricing

Phrase's pricing is structured to accommodate various user needs. There are three main plans and an enterprise option with custom pricing.

The plans begin with a Starter, which is €125 per month and includes only 7 Phrase products, software localization, CAT features, translation memories, and QA. The next plan, called Team, priced at €995 per month, comes with all of Phrase’s products, customizable translation workflows, AI-powered machine translation, vendor management, and reporting features.

Finally, we have the business plan at €3,995 per month that includes everything from the previous plans plus multiple custom AI models, single sign-on solutions, unlimited analytics dashboards, and custom metadata and branching for products.

Feature Comparison: How Do Leading TMS Solutions Stack Up?

Maximize Global Reach with the Right Translation Management System

If you’re a business that wants to connect with a global audience, you need to understand the importance of the right translation management system. The optimal TMS does more than just convert content from one language to another: it simplifies the translation process, helps you communicate effectively with a multilingual audience, and supports your business at every step of the way.

But remember, choosing the right TMS isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula, and each TMS targets different business needs and priorities. We recommend going through the capabilities of each tool and assessing them according to what your goals and budget are. Most include a free trial or a free version, and that’s always a good way to test out their capabilities and see how your teams work with each tool.

Naturally, Weglot is our recommended solution, and we offer a free trial that enables you to test out the full feature set! If you’re interested in seeing if Weglot is a good fit for your site, start your free trial today and experience the intuitive translation features yourself!