Top 3 WordPress Translation Plugins: Compare with Best Practices & Limitations

As businesses and websites strive to reach a global audience, multilingual capabilities have become essential. WordPress translation plugins provide a powerful solution for creating and managing multilingual websites. This article is all about WordPress translation plugins and compares the top 3 with best practices and limitations. 

Whether you’re a developer, site owner, or content creator, collaborate with a professional WordPress website development company to make informed decisions and deliver a seamless multilingual experience to your website visitors.

Let us have an overview of the WordPress translation plugins in the market that can help you in reaching your audience globally.

Weglot

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (Weglot) - ColorWhistle

Weglot is a versatile cloud-based website translation platform that seamlessly integrates with popular platforms like WordPress, Shopify, and BigCommerce. With Weglot, you can efficiently translate and manage all your website content through their dedicated website. It supports a wide range of languages, offering over 100 options for localization. The platform provides a user-friendly dashboard to handle translations, along with convenient language switchers and URL translations. 

Additional features include SEO-friendly URL support, WooCommerce compatibility, a language switcher button, and the ability to connect with third-party translation services. Weglot adopts a monthly pricing structure based on the number of languages and translated words, which may differ from other multilingual WordPress plugins that offer fixed yearly licenses.

Pricing: You can try it for free and the plan starts from €150 to €6,990 yearly

WPML

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (WPML) - ColorWhistle

WPML stands as one of the most popular WordPress multilingual plugins available. It offers a robust translation management system that enables you to translate various elements including content, themes, and plugins.

WPML offers two licensing plans: Multilingual Blog and Multilingual CMS. The Multilingual CMS plan is recommended for eCommerce, page builder support, custom fields, managing translation teams, and accessing additional features.

The plugin provides a user-friendly interface for effortless translation addition and management of multilingual content throughout your website. WPML fully supports all post types, taxonomies, custom fields, and generated strings by your WordPress themes and plugins.

Furthermore, WPML facilitates integration with third-party translation service providers. You can selectively choose the content that needs translation and directly submit it to your website. Supporting over 40 languages, WPML includes features like language switchers, automatic machine translation, and compatibility with popular themes and plugins.

Pricing: Ranges from $39 to $199

Polylang

Compare  WordPress Translation Plugins (Polylang) - ColorWhistle

Polylang is a powerful plugin that offers the seamless creation of multilingual or bilingual WordPress websites. Polylang does not include built-in support for translating WordPress themes and plugins. To enable eCommerce support, you may need to purchase an add-on.

Polylang allows you to configure SEO-friendly URLs for each language and integrates smoothly with popular WordPress SEO plugins. You can easily add a language switcher to your website using a sidebar widget to provide language selection functionality.

It offers straightforward translation capabilities for posts, pages, categories, and widgets. Additionally, it provides language switchers, customizable URLs, and seamless compatibility with popular plugins such as WooCommerce.

Pricing: It is available for free. The Pro version starts from €99.9 and keeps varying depending on the functionalities and features.

Lokalise

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (Lokalise) - ColorWhistle

Lokalise is a comprehensive toolkit that simplifies the entire translation process. It enables you to assign tasks and communicate seamlessly with your translation team through built-in chat functionality. To optimize costs, Lokalise offers machine translations while providing access to language vendors when necessary. 

By providing a shared space, Lokalise ensures collaborative teamwork with enhanced visibility and contextual understanding throughout the translation process. With over 50 integrations, Lokalise seamlessly integrates into your existing workflows, enabling maximum automation and efficiency. Whether you’re managing a small project or a large-scale localization effort, Lokalise offers the tools and capabilities to streamline and enhance your WordPress translation experience.

Pricing: Has a 14-day trial period. Package starts from $120

Lingotek Translation

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (Lingotek) - ColorWhistle

Lingotek Translation offers the following solutions that suit any type of organization,

  • Translation Management System
  • Personal Translation System
  • Business Platform Integrations

Lingotek offers a flexible solution for those looking, to begin with a simple language implementation and expand into more complex multilingual websites. By utilizing their cloud-based translation and localization process, Lingotek can efficiently translate your content through a vast network of over 5,000 in-country translators. The plugin seamlessly integrates with Polylang, enabling you to create a truly multilingual website. It’s important to note that pricing information for the plugin is not available online, suggesting a potential need to contact Lingotek directly for specific pricing details.

Pricing: Not available. Contact the sales team for details

Did you know?

There are more than 60k plugins on WordPress Plugins, and their downloads reach one billion and counting.

Google Language Translator

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (Google) - ColorWhistle

Google Language Translator is a popular translation tool provided by Google. It allows you to add language translation capabilities to your website, making it accessible to a wider audience. With Google Language Translator, you can offer visitors the ability to translate your website content into their preferred language. The tool utilizes Google’s machine translation technology to automatically translate the text. It supports a wide range of languages and provides a user-friendly interface for language selection. 

Google Language Translator is easy to implement on your website, typically by adding a widget or code snippet. However, it’s essential to note that the accuracy and quality of translations may vary, as it relies on automated translation technology. The Google Language Translator plugin offers the opportunity to utilize Google Translate’s extensive language support, covering over 80 languages. By integrating this plugin into your website, visitors are empowered with the ability to easily switch between different language views, enhancing accessibility and user experience. As per the WordPress download page, this plugin has already been adopted by over 500,000 multilingual websites worldwide, highlighting its popularity and widespread usage in the WordPress community.

Pricing: Available for free and the pro version starts from $9.99/month

Google Website Translator

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (GWT) - ColorWhistle

Google Website Translator, provided by Google, is a solution that empowers website owners to incorporate language translation capabilities into their websites. By integrating Google Website Translator, visitors can easily translate website content into their preferred language. This convenient plugin supports translations into over 100 languages and offers a straightforward setup process for seamless integration with your website.

The plugin allows you to efficiently store all settings in a single database record. As a result, it minimally impacts page load times, making it particularly suitable for complex or content-heavy websites. With Google Website Translator, you can provide a multilingual experience to your visitors without sacrificing website performance.

This user-friendly plugin operates smoothly, ensuring a valuable tool for expanding your website’s global reach. By utilizing Google Website Translator, you can effortlessly enhance accessibility and cater to a wider audience.

Multilingual Press

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (MultilingualPress) - ColorWhistle

Multilingual Press offers a unique approach to building multilingual websites using WordPress. Rather than operating within a regular WordPress installation, it leverages the built-in WordPress multisite network feature to create separate sites for each language.

By utilizing this approach, Multilingual Press optimizes content management for each language and enhances performance by loading one language at a time. The plugin provides a user-friendly interface that allows you to effortlessly manage translations from a centralized dashboard.

Multilingual Press supports a wide range of content types, including posts, pages, custom post types, and taxonomies. Thanks to its architecture, each language can be assigned to its subdomain, directory, or even a custom domain name, providing flexibility in structuring your multilingual website.

Pricing: Package starts from $99/year

Loco Translate

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (Loco) - ColorWhistle

Loco Translate is a popular WordPress plugin that simplifies the translation process for your themes and plugins. It provides a user-friendly interface for translating text strings directly within your WordPress dashboard. Loco Translate stands out by its compatibility with any automatic translation tool through its built-in API. This means you can seamlessly integrate Loco Translate with your preferred translation service. It also allows you to easily update language files from within the plugin, theme, or even directly from your browser. The plugin offers features like string filtering, search functionality, and inline editing, making it convenient to locate and translate specific text strings. It also provides support for plural forms and context-aware translations, ensuring accurate and contextually appropriate translations. 

On the whole, Loco Translate is a handy tool for WordPress developers and site owners to manage translations efficiently, making their themes and plugins accessible to a global audience.

Pricing: Get started for free. Package starts from $5.95/month

TranslatePress

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (TranslatePress) - ColorWhistle

TranslatePress is a versatile translation plugin for WordPress that allows you to easily translate your website content. It provides a visual translation interface, making it convenient for both beginners and advanced users.

With TranslatePress, you can translate all aspects of your website, including pages, posts, widgets, menus, and even theme and plugin texts. The plugin offers a live preview feature, enabling you to see translations in real-time as you work on them.

One notable feature of TranslatePress is its ability to translate dynamic content generated by plugins or themes, such as WooCommerce product descriptions or contact form fields. It supports automatic translation using Google Translate, but you can also manually edit and fine-tune translations to ensure accuracy.

TranslatePress also includes multilingual SEO features, allowing you to optimize each language version of your website for search engines. It supports language switchers and customizable language URLs, making it easy for visitors to navigate between different language versions of your site.

TranslatePress provides a comprehensive and user-friendly translation solution for WordPress, giving you full control over the translation process and helping you create multilingual websites efficiently.

Pricing: The plan starts from €89/year

What are AI-based Translation Plugins?

AI-based translation plugins are WordPress plugins that utilize artificial intelligence technology to provide automated translation services. These plugins use machine learning algorithms to analyze and translate content in real-time, aiming to provide accurate and contextually appropriate translations. AI-based translation plugins typically leverage large databases of multilingual data and employ advanced natural language processing techniques to improve the quality and accuracy of translations.

You can harness the power of AI with our professional AI consulting services

GTranslate

Compare WordPress Translation Plugins (GTranslate) - ColorWhistle

GTranslate is a WordPress translation plugin that offers automatic language translation for your website. It integrates with Google Translate to provide translations in over 100 languages. With GTranslate, your visitors can easily switch between different language versions of your website using language switchers or flags. The plugin automatically detects the user’s browser language and translates the content accordingly. It also supports SEO-friendly URLs and cache compatibility. GTranslate offers both free and paid versions with additional features such as editing translations, language selector styles, and more. 

Pricing: 15-day free trial. The plan starts from $9.99/month

Comparing  WPML vs Translate Press vs GTranslate

FeatureWPMLTranslate PressGTranslate
Translation ControlFull control over translationsFull control over translationsAutomatic translation using Google Translate
Multilingual SEOYesYesYes
Content TranslationPosts, pages, custom post types, etc.Posts, pages, widgets, menus, theme, and plugin textsFull website content
Visual TranslationNoYesNo
Translation ServicesOption to use third-party servicesNoUtilizes Google Translate
Language SwitchersMultiple options availableYesYes, with language flags and switcher options
PricingPackage ranges from $39 to $199The plan starts from €89/year15-day free trial. The plan starts from $9.99/month

Looking for WordPress Development Services?

Seize and experience the transformative impact of WordPress solutions with ColorWhistle.

Are You Looking For the Best Suitable Translation Plugin?

In the realm of WordPress translation plugins, you have many options to choose and each offers distinct advantages. 

When it comes to WPML, TranslatePress, and GTranslate: 

WPML’s comprehensive features and translation management system make it a top choice for more extensive, multilingual websites. TranslatePress stands out with its visual translation interface and dynamic content translation capabilities. GTranslate, with its automatic translation integration, provides a quick and easy solution for smaller websites. 

However, it’s important to consider the limitations of each plugin, such as pricing structures, compatibility issues, or the need for additional configuration. By aligning your requirements with these plugins’ strengths and implementing best translation practices, you can successfully create a multilingual website that caters to a global audience.

Even if you have ideas for developing a WordPress plugin for your business, collaborate with a well-known WordPress plugin development agency to craft custom plugins that are specifically tailored to your bespoke needs and objectives. 

For more interesting and professional digital marketing services,  you can contact ColorWhistle by sending us a message or call us at +1 (919) 234-5140, we’ll get back to you at the earliest. We provide services tailored to your requirements that suit your business.

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve had the chance to explore our blog, it’s time to take the next step and see what opportunities await!

Read Similar Content
Wish to Explore Our Services?
Have an Idea? or Project Scope?
Varsha
About the Author - Varsha

I am a zealous copywriter with an enthusiasm to learn everyday. I am able to diversify my knowledge at CW as I get the opportunity to write for various industries. What I love about writing is the research part when I can explore on the data while googling. I am also experienced in playing with words for the WooCommerce plugins and eCommerce platforms. When am off from writing I love experimenting new dishes and also a booklouse at time.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ready to get started?

Let’s craft your next digital story

Our Expertise Certifications - ColorWhistle
Go to top
Close Popup

Let's Talk

    Sure thing, leave us your details and one of our representatives will be happy to call you back!

    Eg: John Doe

    Eg: United States

    More the details, speeder the process :)