Translation · alternatives
Alternatives to Smartling
22 translation tools sit alongside Smartling in this directory. Below is what separates each from Smartling on the figures we hold, price, model, tier count and rating, and a direct comparison for every one.
- Alternatives listed
- 22
- With a free tier
- 11
- Cheaper to start
- -
- Smartling starts at
- On request
Why people look past Smartling
Only what the record supports. Each point below is a figure on the Smartling entry measured against the tools listed beside it.
There is no free tier
The record for Smartling carries no free tier, so evaluating it means paying first. 11 of the 22 alternatives below can be used without paying.
What each alternative does differently
Ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry. Differences are drawn from price, pricing model, tier count and rating, the fields the category listing carries. For a feature-level difference, follow the head-to-head link on each card: those pages read both full records.
A flexible platform with product capacities that scale with your team
- Sold on a subscription model rather than quote.
- 5 tiers to Smartling's 3.
Simple, transparent pricing. Start free and scale as you grow.
- Can be used without paying; Smartling cannot.
- Publishes an entry price of Free, where Smartling does not.
- Sold on a subscription model rather than quote.
- 1 tier to Smartling's 3.
New packages to fuel your revenue growth
- Can be used without paying; Smartling cannot.
- Publishes an entry price of $144/month, where Smartling does not.
- Sold on a subscription model rather than quote.
- 4 tiers to Smartling's 3.
Free, open source desktop CAT tool under the GPLv3, maintained by a volunteer community rather than a company
- Can be used without paying; Smartling cannot.
- Sold on a Open source, no licence fee model rather than quote.
- 1 tier to Smartling's 3.
Azure AI Translator, priced at $10 per million characters for standard text translation with volume commitment discounts available
- Can be used without paying; Smartling cannot.
- Sold on a Per million characters model rather than quote.
AWS machine translation API priced at $15 per million characters, with a 2 million character monthly free tier for the first 12 months
- Can be used without paying; Smartling cannot.
- Sold on a Per million characters model rather than quote.
- 4 tiers to Smartling's 3.
Every Smartling alternative at a glance
A dash means the catalogue entry carries no figure, not that the answer is nothing.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Tiers | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smartling (this page) | On request | Quote | 3 | |
| PhraseA software-first platform if you want the tooling without the vendor also selling you the translation work | On request | Subscription | 5 | vs Smartling |
| CrowdinBetter value for software and product localisation, with published pricing and a strong developer workflow | Free | Subscription | 1 | vs Smartling |
| LokaliseA closer fit for product teams shipping strings from repositories rather than marketing content from a CMS | Free, then $144/month | Subscription | 4 | vs Smartling |
| OmegaT | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Microsoft Translator | Free | Per million characters | 3 | vs Smartling |
| Amazon Translate | Free | Per million characters | 4 | vs Smartling |
| Google Translate | Free | Per million characters | 4 | vs Smartling |
| MateCat | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Reverso | Free | Per user per month | 3 | vs Smartling |
| wxrks | Free, then $38/month | Per year by processed word volume | 8 | vs Smartling |
| POEditor | Free, then $14.99/month | Per month by string count | 4 | vs Smartling |
| Pontoon | Free | Open source, no licence fee | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Plunet | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Smartling |
| XTRF | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Unbabel | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Systran | On request | Per user per month, or quote for Enterprise | 3 | vs Smartling |
| Gengo | On request | Per word | 2 | vs Smartling |
| Smartcat | $1200/year | Per year by Smartword volume | 4 | vs Smartling |
| SDL Trados Studio | On request | Quote | 1 | vs Smartling |
| Sonix | $10/month | Per hour of transcription | 5 | vs Smartling |
| XTM Cloud | On request | Quote | 3 | vs Smartling |
| Wordbee | €150/month | Per power user per month | 7 | vs Smartling |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry; Softwr hosts no reviews of these products. How each figure is used is set out on the Smartling badges page.
Cheaper ways to solve the same problem
Free to start (11)
These publish a tier that costs nothing, so they can be evaluated before any money changes hands.
- Crowdin , Free
- Lokalise , Free, then $144/month
- OmegaT , Free
- Microsoft Translator , Free
- Amazon Translate , Free
- Google Translate , Free
- MateCat , Free
- Reverso , Free
What you would be giving up
Smartling is most often brought in for a company that wants one supplier answerable for both the translation platform and the quality of the translated output, marketing sites where a translator needs to see the rendered page, not a spreadsheet of strings, to get tone and length right, replacing a platform vendor plus several separate agencies with a single contract and a single invoice, content operations at a volume where per-word rates are the dominant cost and the tooling fee is noise. Anything replacing it has to cover the ones you actually depend on, and a cheaper tool that misses one of them is not cheaper.
Two things this page cannot settle. It compares on price, model, tier count and rating, because those are the fields the category listing carries, feature-level differences need both full records, which is what the head-to-head pages load. And the ratings are third-party aggregates imported with each entry rather than reviews written here, so a 0.2 difference between two tools is noise rather than a finding.
If Smartling is broadly right and the question is cost, the Smartling pricing breakdown covers every tier and what each one adds. If you want the whole field rather than a shortlist, the Translation category lists everything the directory holds, and best translation tools ranks them.
Smartling runs on web, api. Platform coverage is not carried on the category listing for the alternatives, so it is one more thing to check on each head-to-head page rather than here.
Questions about Smartling alternatives
- What are the main alternatives to Smartling?
- 22 other translation tools are listed in this directory, led by Phrase, Crowdin, Lokalise, OmegaT. They are ordered by the aggregated rating on each catalogue entry, not by any Softwr ranking.
- What is the best free alternative to Smartling?
- 11 of the alternatives listed here can be used without paying: Crowdin, Lokalise, OmegaT, Microsoft Translator, Amazon Translate.
- Why do people look for an alternative to Smartling?
- On the figures on record, one thing stands out: there is no free tier. Each is set out with the numbers behind it above.
- What would I give up by switching from Smartling?
- Smartling is most often brought in for a company that wants one supplier answerable for both the translation platform and the quality of the translated output, marketing sites where a translator needs to see the rendered page, not a spreadsheet of strings, to get tone and length right, replacing a platform vendor plus several separate agencies with a single contract and a single invoice, content operations at a volume where per-word rates are the dominant cost and the tooling fee is noise. Anything you replace it with has to cover the ones you actually rely on, the side-by-side comparisons linked from each alternative below put the two feature records against each other.
- Is there an open-source alternative to Smartling?
- None of the translation tools listed here are recorded as open source. That is what the licence field on each entry says, and the field is not always filled in, so it is worth checking directly for any tool you are serious about.
- How were these Smartling alternatives chosen?
- They are the tools filed in the same category, Translation, ordered by the aggregated rating on each entry. There is no editorial shortlist, and nothing on this page is paid: no sponsored placement runs on alternatives pages and the order cannot be bought. Softwr has not used these products.
- Where can I compare Smartling against one of these directly?
- Every alternative below has a side-by-side page against Smartling covering price, platforms, features and what each one is used for. Those pages read the full record for both products rather than the summary shown here.
- Does this list cover every translation tool?
- No. It covers what this directory holds in the Translation category, 22 tools beside Smartling. The category page lists the rest of the catalogue as it grows.