Best of automatic WordPress translation plugins

Having a website in English is a good idea to reach a lot of persons as it is true that this is a language that a big part of the world speaks but this is also true that a lot of these persons don’t perfectly understand it, this could be an issue when trying to sell a product or maybe provide information.

I personally think that we should provide the information on our page in all possible languages so the users are not forced to visit your site in only one language.

As the main idea is to serve your site as many persons as possible and we can’t waste time translating the entire site in let’s say 20 more languages the best idea could be to take advantage of WordPress and use a translation plugin.

Let’s compare the best automatic translation plugins in this post so you can choose one of them.

 1- Linguise

A nice tool, to be honest, it is good to say that this one is the more complete plugin, it has a lot of functions like a frontend editor tool and the option to add rules for exclusions so you don’t have to go to each section and edit the translated words that you don’t want to be translated for example.

Starting for all the options we have on the Dashboard side from Linguise, first of all, the installation, which is as easy as set your preferences on Linguise, connect it using the WordPress plugin, and adding the languages menu, using a menu item for example.

Now you can go to the linguise and the first screen you will see is an overview with the visits for all the translated pages because yes, it actually creates a page per language and index it so every page in a different language is a completely different page and not just the same page translated, basically what you get here is:

• Latest 30 days statistics(all the translated words, bandwidth, translated characters, and requests).
• Pages views per language.
• An overview of the multilingual page views.
• 20 Most viewed pages.

Then we have the other tabs in the dashboard, the rules, where we can add rules for exclusion so for example, exclude a word or a phrase for being translated, like your product name.

Translations where we can edit all the translations made on our pages, if we see a word or a sentence in specific that we want to be translated in a different way, here is where you can look for that sentence using the filter and edit that translation.

URLs Translations, this is a really useful tool as we are going to be able to change how are made the translated URLs because, as mentioned before, there are new pages generated per language with different and translated URL so your sites get indexed in that new languages.

Live Editor, the awesome live editor that basically works like a page builder, you are going to be able to see your site and switch between the editor and the navigation version using a widget, so if you use it, you are going to be able to see the frontend and click the text that you want to edit, a pop up will appear with the original text, the translated text, and the editor so you change how it is translated, awesome! Isn’t it? :)

That’s on the Linguise site side, apart from this you have a Dashboard on your WordPress site where you can do other things, let’s have a look at this, after installing the plugin, you will have Linguise as an option on the left menu.

First of all, we have the option to set up the translations where we can set the API Key from your Linguise account, the original language of your site, and all the languages that you are going to use to translate your site.

At the bottom, we have the options for the menu, where we can set how we are going to add the menu, the menu display if you want to set the flags or the language’s title, or both, an option to set an alternative link for SEO purposes.

As a plus, in the other tab, you can add a text before and/or after the languages options.

As you can see, everything is right there so you don’t have to go to your Linguise account if you want to set it up quickly directly from your WordPress site, here is an example of how the translations options look like:

As you can see a really good tool where you can manage multiple sites, if you have them, with a lot of functions to make your life better and better, oh, and it will translate the entire site instantly.

I have to say that we didn’t talk about other functions like the one to invite translators to your Linguise dashboard so they can have access to only the sites that you allow them to review and you won’t have to give them your credentials.

You can visit the Linguise site to get more info and get your own membership :)

2- TranslatePress

A really complete and easy-to-use plugin that allows you to translate your posts, pages, and strings that you use on your theme and plugins.

This plugin has the option to use an automatic or manual translator, you have the option to use it in multiple themes, and also offer addons that you can use to improve the translation system like the SEO Pack.

The first option you could keep in mind here is to use the automatic translator but they also offer a tool inside the page builder to add/edit translations.

It has many plans depending on the number of sites that you want to use, for 1 site, 3 sites, and unlimited sites which is a good offer if you manage clients’ pages.

You will have 121 available languages to select so would say that it is a really good tool with a good price that offers facilities and will translate your site in a few minutes.

In order to be able to use all the options available on TranslatePress, you will have to pay at least for the Business, but the personal plan should be enough if you manage a single small site.

You can see more about the pricing here so you can compare and check all the options available per plan.

3- Weglot

With a good amount of integrations, it could be a really good tool as this has a time in the market, famous brands like Spotify, and Nikon uses this system on their websites.

We have to mention that in the time, this has been a good plugin so there is nothing bad with it, the only thing we could talk about is their price which could be expensive in relation to other competitors offering plans per words and translated languages from 99€/year(one language/ 10.000 words) to 1990€/year for 10 languages(apart of the original language of your site) and 1.000.000 words.

In order to enjoy all the features available, you will need the Advanced plan, to mention many of these features we have:

• Automatic redirection, to redirect your visitors automatically to their preferred language.
• Translated view statistics.
• Translated URls(Beta).
• Export & Import, that could make easier the translation on more than one page(available on Advanced).
• A Dashboard, to manage all your sites.
• SEO-based translations.
• Team Collaborators, option to add collaborators to review and translate your site.

This is a really complete tool and you have many options from their dashboard to control all your sites so you won’t have to access your wp administrator to manage each of them.

We will have the option to manage how to add the translate button in a menu or in a widget area, this will make easier the process of adding this option.

Another good option on this tool is the option to hire professional translators to translate/review your content which is available directly on the Weglot Dashboard which starts from €0.13/word depending on the language pair.

A really good tool to keep in mind when you want to translate multiple sites and want a professional review in the same dashboard, you can see more about their pricing here.

4- Polylang

A popular translation plugin that you could keep in mind if you want to do a manual translation.

Polylang has an integration with Lingotek to make an automatic translation but it is designed to make your own translation manually and add it to your site.

With this plugin, you have the option to add translation to your pages, posts, and also elements like menus, media, tags, and categories in an easy way.

Polylang has premade languages switchers but you can customize them to make them fit your site which is an advantage because everything is going to look integrated into your site.

With really good prices, in my opinion, is a good tool itself if you want to make your own translations or you have professional translators for your site as it will allow you to translate everything on your site and you don’t have a limitation for the number of words.

As you can see there are many versions, the free one should be enough if you only want to translate a blog.

You can go to the Polylang site and check all their available features.

5- WPML

WPML is definitively one of the oldest multilingual plugins so it has its own fame as it is active in over 1 Million WordPress sites, and these numbers talk for themselves.

It is not a plugin designed to automatically translate your site but it has the option to do it.

WPML doesn’t have a free version but we have to keep in mind that this one could be the most complete plugin when we talk about manually translate WordPress sites.

There are 3 plans offered by them, the Multilingual Blog plan that doesn’t offer you all the available tools but gives you enough tools to translate your site, the Multilingual CMS plan that offers you all the available tools offered but is limited to 3 sites, and finally, the Multilingual Agency that has all the available tools for unlimited sites so you can select a plan depending on what you need.

This plugin gives you many tools like an option to translate your page/post directly in the page builder or in the editor that you use, with SEO tools that are simply great because give you total control over the translated URLs.

In manual translation, WPML is simply a great tool that offers plans according to your needs so another really good tool to keep in mind if you want to manual translate your site.

Conclusion for the WordPress best translation plugin list

In conclusion, we should say that there is a tool or plugin depending on the case, and each person should select the one that will fit their own needs.

In my opinion, the most complete tool is Linguise which really offers you all the possible tools available as you can use automatic neural-based translations, and also will be able to hire a professional translator to review a really small part of your content(like 10%).

With Linguise you also have all the control of the translated URLs and it is important to say that Linguise will use their own servers to serve all your translated content with a powerful cache system so will also improve your site performance.

Linguise is a really good tool that offers unlimited languages, does everything for you, and also gives you complete control over the translations and the SEO of your multilingual pages so what else you can ask for? :)