LangRelay

The best website translation software, compared (2026)

Eight tools for translating a website, compared on how they serve pages, what happens when content changes, who approves what goes live, and how much of the work AI can take off your hands. Every competitor claim comes from the vendor’s own pages, listed under Sources.

Chris Jaydenby Chris Jayden, founder of LangRelayUpdated

Every tool translates. Few of them ask first.

Getting a website translated is the easy part now. Almost every tool below can machine-translate a page in minutes. The differences show up afterwards: when someone edits a page, when a translation needs a second pair of eyes, when search engines need a clean URL for every language, and when the bill grows with every language you add.

I build LangRelay, so read this with that in mind. I’ve tried to make it useful anyway: each tool gets credit for what it does well, LangRelay’s own gaps are marked as gaps, and every claim about another product comes from that product’s own pages, with the date we checked it.

Eight tools, and who each one is for

WordPress plugin with an AI agent

LangRelay

Translates the rendered WordPress page without duplicating posts. Free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price before it goes live, and Relay, its AI agent, drafts the changes you ask for in plain language.

Translating proxy for any platform

Weglot

A translating proxy that works on almost any platform. Its help center says languages are public by default and new text is translated automatically, unless you turn off automatic content translation or hide automatic translations. Pricing caps the total number of translated words and languages.

LangRelay vs Weglot

WordPress plugin, one post per language

WPML

A WordPress translation plugin that stores each language as its own post in your database, with review controls and integrations for page builders, WooCommerce and translation services. AI translation is paid per word beyond the words a yearly licence includes.

LangRelay vs WPML

WordPress plugin, translates the rendered page

TranslatePress

A WordPress plugin that translates the rendered page, with a front-end visual editor even in the free version. Translations live in your database; automatic translations are served without an approval step.

LangRelay vs TranslatePress

WordPress plugin, one post per language

Polylang

A free WordPress plugin with 900,000+ active installations on WordPress.org. Each language is its own post, translated by hand; Pro adds DeepL one post at a time, slug translation and more. Editing the original does not update its translated text.

LangRelay vs Polylang

Hosted translation service

Linguise

A hosted service that translates the whole site automatically and serves the translations from its own servers, with SEO output and unlimited languages. We found no review step before translations go live.

LangRelay vs Linguise

Language switcher and translating proxy

GTranslate

A free language switcher that translates in the browser with Google Translate, without SEO; its WordPress plugin has more than 900,000 active installs. Paid plans add a translating proxy with indexable pages and no word limits.

LangRelay vs GTranslate

Translation plugin and proxy

ConveyThis

A plugin and proxy with 35+ platform integrations, with a visual editor on every plan and a read-only MCP server. New translations show on the site as soon as they are made.

LangRelay vs ConveyThis

Delivery and SEO

How translated pages reach visitors and search engines. Hover a heading for what it means, or a mark for the detail.

  • No · Not offered
  • Partly · With a limit
  • Planned · Announced, not shipped
  • Not found · Not on the vendor’s own pages when we checked
  • Yes · Included
ToolDeliveryNo duplicate postshreflangTranslated slugs
LangRelay: WordPress plugin serves translated HTML from your server. A script tag works on any other site, without SEO.: Translates the rendered page. Your posts stay as they are.: Subdirectories (/fr/), hreflang with x-default, a canonical per language, and translated titles and meta.Partly: Set by hand per page and language. Automatic slug translation is on the way.
Weglot: Weglot’s reverse proxy and CDN serve translated HTML on a subdomain or subdirectory. A JavaScript option translates in the browser, which search engines do not see.: The WordPress plugin creates a URL per language without creating pages in the WordPress backend.: hreflang added automatically (x-default only by hand). Titles, meta descriptions, alt text and structured data translated.Partly: Pro plan and up.
WPML: WordPress plugin. Translations are WordPress content served by your site, in directories, (sub)domains or a ?lang= parameter.No: Each translation is its own WordPress post, linked to the original.: hreflang with x-default in the page head and in Yoast and Rank Math sitemaps.: Translated by default, and editable.
TranslatePress: WordPress plugin. Translations are stored in your database and served by your site, with a language slug in the URL such as /fr/.: One post. Translations are saved per string in the plugin’s own database tables.: hreflang for every page. Translated metadata and multilingual sitemaps need the SEO Pack, in every paid plan.Partly: SEO Pack, in every paid plan: by hand or automatically.
Polylang: WordPress plugin. A subdirectory, subdomain or separate domain per language.No: Each translation is a separate post, linked to the original.: hreflang tags and language-dependent meta tags.Partly: Pro only: translates URL slugs for post types, taxonomies, categories, tags and author pages.
Linguise: Hosted service. WordPress and Joomla connect through an extension, Shopify through an app, other CMSs through a script; self-hosted sites get subfolders like /fr, cloud-hosted ones subdomains like fr.domain.com.: Translates the rendered page and doesn’t duplicate content in your database.: hreflang, x-default, canonicals, SEO metadata you can edit, and multilingual sitemaps.: Translated automatically, and editable in the dashboard.
GTranslatePartly: Paid plans are a translating proxy on a subdirectory, subdomain or country domain. The free plan translates in the browser, with no SEO benefit.: Translates the finished HTML; translations are stored by GTranslate, not in WordPress.Partly: Paid plans only: hreflang tags and translated meta descriptions.Partly: Business and Enterprise plans, or as an option on a Custom plan.
ConveyThis: WordPress plugin, a JavaScript snippet, or routing your subdomain or subdirectory through ConveyThis (Business plan and up).: Translates the rendered page; translations live on ConveyThis’s servers, not in WordPress.: hreflang added automatically; metadata and image alt text translated.Partly: Translated URLs on the Pro plan and higher.

Workflow and review

What happens when content changes, and who decides what goes live. Hover a heading for what it means, or a mark for the detail.

ToolFollows editsApproval stepVisual editorGlossary
LangRelay: The WordPress plugin reports an edit about a minute later, and only the new text is translated. Other sites can call a change hook from their CMS or deploy.: When you choose Ask me first. By default pages go live as they are ready, and free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price. Legal pages, pricing pages and sweeping changes always wait for you.: Click text on the rendered page to edit, at desktop, tablet and mobile widths.: Per-language terms, “keep as source”, and match case. Paid plans.
Weglot: New and changed text is translated when a visitor or search engine opens the translated page.Partly: With automatic content translation turned off, new content waits in a list until you approve it; then its translation shows.: Edits translations on a preview copy of your site, with an SEO tags panel.: “Always translate” and “never translate” rules of up to five words each.
WPML: With Translate Everything Automatically on, new posts and edits are picked up and translated. Otherwise you send them to translation yourself.: PTC can publish at once, hold drafts for a Translation Manager’s approval, or publish and queue for review.Partly: The Advanced Translation Editor is side by side, with a front-end preview you can click to edit. Not on the Blog plan.: Glossary for product names and terms to keep untranslated, with PTC and DeepL.
TranslatePress: An edited string counts as new and needs translating again. With automatic translation on, it is translated when a visitor next opens the page in that language.Partly: No approval step per translation found. The Multiple Languages add-on, in every paid plan, can keep a whole language hidden until you publish it.: Front-end editor with a live preview, in the free plugin.: Applies to new automatic translations when TranslatePress AI is the engine.
PolylangNo: Editing the original does not update its DeepL translation; you edit it by hand or regenerate it.Partly: DeepL output is saved as a draft that a person publishes. No approval workflow found.Not found: No front-end editor found.Partly: Pro: choose a DeepL glossary, managed in your DeepL account.
Linguise: New and changed text is detected and translated automatically. A manual edit is replaced if the original later changes.No: The install guide says the whole site is translated once the API key is applied; no approval step found. Edits happen afterwards.: Live Editor: click and edit on the real translated page, metadata included.Partly: Replace and exclude rules instead of a glossary, by URL, language, CSS selector or pattern.
GTranslate: Paid plans fetch the original when a visitor opens a translated page, so changes show up once the cache refreshes.Not found: No approval step found.: Paid plans: pencil icons beside each text on the translated page.Partly: No glossary found. Paid plans can skip phrases, CSS selectors or pages.
ConveyThis: Changed text gets a new translation, which replaces the old one on the site.Partly: Review and edit in private mode, then publish the site. No step that holds one translation until approved is documented.: Click and edit on the live page, on every plan.: “Always translate” and “never translate” rules, on paid plans.

AI and integrations

How much of the work AI takes on, and how you reach it. Hover a heading for what it means, or a mark for the detail.

ToolMachine translationAI reviewAI assistantMCPAPI
LangRelay: AI translation that follows your glossary and each language’s formality.: Relay reviews any page you ask it to, the way a language expert would, quoted in AI credits first. It reviews legal pages, pricing pages and sweeping changes on its own while you have AI credits.: Relay, a chat agent that reads your Site’s pages and translations and drafts changes for your approval.Planned: On the way: connect Claude or ChatGPT to your Sites.Planned: On the way, for the Growth plan and up.
Weglot: DeepL when it supports the language pair, otherwise Google Translate or Microsoft. AI Suggestions, generated with OpenAI, rephrase or shorten a translation.Partly: In Weglot 2.0, the AI Translation Quality Checker points your team to the content that deserves a closer look. People do the review.Not found: No built-in chat assistant found.: Weglot 2.0 lists MCP-powered assistance: an AI assistant can find projects, review translations and update content. Plans and setup are not published.: REST API with an API key. Which plans include it is not published.
WPML: PTC, WPML’s own LLM-based engine, by default. DeepL, Google and Microsoft remain as legacy engines.Partly: PTC learns from your repeated edits and suggests fixes. No separate reviewer found.Not found: No chat assistant found.Not found: Not found on wpml.org.Partly: PHP filter and action hooks for themes and plugins. No public REST API for site translation found.
TranslatePress: TranslatePress AI picks between LLMs (such as Gemini and GPT) and DeepL or Google Translate per language pair and context. Google with your own key works on every plan, DeepL with your own key on Business and Developer.Not found: No AI quality score or review queue found.Not found: No AI assistant found.Not found: Not found on translatepress.com.Partly: PHP functions and hooks. No public REST API for managing translations found.
PolylangPartly: Pro only: DeepL with your own API key, one post, page or product at a time. Not for Elementor or Divi content.Not found: No AI review found.Not found: No AI assistant found.Not found: Not found on polylang.pro.Partly: Pro only: REST API support for languages and translations.
Linguise: Google Cloud translation by default. Linguise AI, an LLM-based option, is billed separately as a prepaid quota.Not found: No AI review found.Not found: No AI assistant found.Not found: Not found on linguise.com.Not found: No public developer API found.
GTranslate: Free: Google Translate. Paid plans: Google’s neural translation, with no per-word charge.Not found: No AI review found.Not found: No AI assistant found.Not found: Not found on gtranslate.io.Not found: No public API for managing translations found.
ConveyThis: Picks Google Translate, DeepL or Microsoft per language pair.Not found: No AI review found.Not found: No built-in assistant found.Partly: Read-only MCP server: projects, strings, glossary and usage. It cannot edit or publish.Partly: REST API that translates text segments with a public key.

Pricing, and what it actually counts

Headline prices are hard to compare because each tool counts something different: words, translated words, languages, sites or credits. Read the last column before the second.

ToolFree planLowest paid planWhat it counts
Weglot2,000 words, 1 language, 1 project.Starter, €15 a month or €150 a year: 1 language, 10,000 words, 1 project. Business, €29 a month: 3 languages, 50,000 words.Unique translated words across all your languages: a fixed total that does not renew. Languages and projects are capped per plan. Prices exclude VAT.
WPMLNo free plan. 30-day money-back guarantee.Multilingual Blog, €39 a year for 1 production site, without AI translation. Multilingual CMS, €99 a year for 3 production sites, with 22,500 AI words.A yearly licence by number of sites. AI translation counts source words once per target language; after the included words and 500 free words a month, pay as you go from €3.00 per 1,000 words, down to €0.40 with volume.
TranslatePressFree plugin: one extra language, the visual editor, Google Translate with your own key and 2,000 AI words.Personal, €99 a year: 1 site, 50,000 AI words, the SEO Pack and the Multiple Languages add-on.A yearly licence by number of sites, renewed each year. Each licence and renewal includes a quota of AI words; more can be bought from your account.
PolylangPolylang on WordPress.org, with no limit on the number of languages.Polylang Pro, €99 a year for 1 site, excluding VAT.A yearly licence priced by number of sites. Machine translation runs on your own DeepL API key and its quota.
LinguiseNo free plan. A one-month trial of up to 600,000 words, with no credit card needed.START, $15 a month per domain: 200,000 translated words, unlimited languages.Source words times target languages, per domain. Human edits and page views don’t count. Prices in dollars.
GTranslateA browser-only widget without SEO, for non-commercial use: personal, educational or internal testing.Custom, from $12 a month for one extra language. Startup, $25 a month for all languages.A flat monthly price with no word or page-view limit, subject to fair use: the terms treat recurring traffic above 100,000 translated page hits in 24 hours as excessive. Prices in dollars.
ConveyThis10,000 words, 1 language, 1 site, 2,500 page loads a month. No time limit and no card.Starter, $12 a month: 1 language, 60,000 words, 15,000 page loads.Words counted when translated content is shown to a visitor (bots don’t count), plus a monthly cap on page loads. Prices in US dollars, excluding VAT.

LangRelay

  • FreeFree1 Site, 1 language per Site, 2K words a month
  • Starter€19/mo3 Sites, 3 languages per Site, 50K words a month
  • Growth€69/mo5 Sites, 10 languages per Site, 500K words a month
  • Business€249/moUnlimited Sites, Unlimited languages per Site, 2M words a month

A word is a source word machine-translated into one language: a 1,000-word page in three languages uses 3,000 words. Reused, unchanged and hand-edited text uses none. See pricing for annual billing and overage.

Start by choosing a delivery model

Delivery is the architectural decision underneath the interface. It decides whether translations live in your CMS, a browser script, or a service between the visitor and your site. Each can be right; each moves work and control to a different place.

Translating proxy

A hosted service serves translated pages in front of your site, usually on a subdirectory or subdomain. It needs no rebuild and works on almost any platform. Ask how it caches your pages, what visitors see during an outage, and how forms, cookies and logged-in pages behave.

CMS plugin that copies content

Some WordPress plugins store each language as its own post or page. Translations live in your own database and you have full control per language, but every edit to the original has to be carried over to each copy, and the copies can drift out of date.

CMS plugin that translates the rendered page

Other plugins keep one post and translate the HTML WordPress renders, including theme and page-builder output. Edits to the original flow through, and menus, footers and widgets are covered without extra setup. LangRelay works this way.

Client-side script

A script replaces text in the browser after the page loads. It is quick to add, but search engines may only see your original language. Check what the raw HTML contains before you count on it for SEO. LangRelay’s script embed is in this category and makes no SEO claim.

Six questions to ask every tool

1. How does a translated page reach the visitor?

Follow the request. Is the translated HTML rendered by your CMS, served by a proxy, or swapped in by the browser? Check it works with your hosting, CDN, cache plugin, forms and consent banner, and who is responsible when it breaks.

2. What happens when the original page changes?

Launch day is the easy case. Edit a heading, delete a paragraph, publish a new page. Does the tool notice? Does it reuse what was already translated? Can you see what is new, out of date or waiting for review? Recurring changes, not the first translation, decide what a tool costs you in time.

3. Who checks a translation before it goes live?

Many tools publish machine translation the moment it exists. That is fast, and often fine, as long as something catches a page that came out wrong. If your brand, legal copy or product names matter, look for checks that hold a bad page back, a way to approve the pages that matter yourself, and AI that flags problems rather than hiding them.

4. Who controls multilingual SEO?

Translated body copy is not enough. Check per-language URLs, translated titles and descriptions, canonical tags, hreflang, translated slugs and sitemaps. View the page source yourself; a page that looks right in the browser does not prove search engines see it.

5. What do you keep if you leave?

Plugins that store translations in your database leave them behind when you cancel. Hosted services usually stop serving them. Ask what you can export, and what your translated pages show the day after your subscription ends.

6. How much can AI do for you?

Almost every tool now uses neural or AI translation. Fewer use AI for the work around it: reviewing translations, answering “what still needs doing?”, or making a change you describe in a sentence. And if you already work in Claude or ChatGPT, ask whether the tool can be reached from there.

Where LangRelay fits

LangRelay is built for WordPress sites that keep changing, and for the people who look after them. Its plugin translates the rendered page, so there are no duplicate posts and no string keys. You edit translations in a translation workspace and a visual editor. They go live as they are ready, free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price, and legal pages, pricing pages and sweeping changes always wait for you. You can also choose to approve every page yourself. Relay reads your Site’s pages and translations, drafts the changes you ask for, and reviews any page you ask it to.

It is not the right choice for everyone yet. Outside WordPress, LangRelay’s script embed translates in the browser without SEO value, so a Shopify, Webflow or custom site that needs indexed translations is better served by a proxy for now. Translated slugs are set by hand, and the API and MCP access for your own assistant are on the way, not shipped.

Run a practical test

Give every tool on your shortlist the same small test. Pick a page that changes often, add one language, and:

  • Publish the translated page on the URL you want to keep.
  • Check its HTML, title, canonical, hreflang and sitemap entry.
  • Edit the original and see how the tool notices and shows the change.
  • Have the person who will review translations correct one and approve it.
  • Export what you can and write down what happens if you cancel.

That hour tells you more than any table, this one included. If you want to run it on LangRelay, start on the free plan or book a demo and bring a page that changes regularly.

Frequently asked questions

The questions buyers ask when they shortlist website translation software: how pages are served, what SEO needs, what prices count, and how far AI can go.

Something we missed? Book a demo or write to us.

What is the best website translation software?

It depends on how your site is built and who keeps it up to date. For a WordPress site that changes often and where translations need a check before they go live, LangRelay is built for that: free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price, and you can choose to approve every page yourself. For a site on Shopify, Webflow or a custom stack that needs indexed translations, a translating proxy fits today.

Is machine-translated content good for SEO?

Only if search engines can read the translated pages. That means a separate URL per language, translated titles and descriptions, hreflang tags and a canonical per page, served in the HTML rather than swapped in by JavaScript. A script that translates in the browser may leave search engines with your original language only.

Should a WordPress translation plugin duplicate posts for each language?

Plugins that store each language as its own post keep full control per language, but every edit to the original has to be repeated in each copy. Plugins that translate the rendered page keep one post and pick up theme, menu and page-builder text automatically. Neither is wrong; on a site that changes often, the second leaves no copies to update.

How do I compare translation software prices?

Compare what the price counts, not the headline number. Some tools count source words, some count words translated into every language, some cap languages or sites. Work out your own number: words on the site, times languages, plus how much changes each month.

Can I trust AI translation without a human review?

AI translation is good enough to publish for a lot of website copy, but not all of it. Product names, legal text and brand voice still benefit from review. Look for a tool that lets AI flag problems and lets a person approve what matters, rather than one that publishes everything unseen.

What is MCP, and why does it matter for translation?

MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT use another tool directly. For translation, that means asking your own assistant to check or update a page instead of opening another dashboard. LangRelay has MCP on the way; check each vendor’s documentation for its current status.

Sources

Every competitor claim above comes from the vendor’s own pages: its website, its documentation or its WordPress.org listing. Prices and features change; spotted something out of date? Tell us and we’ll correct it.

Weglot

WPML

TranslatePress

Polylang

Linguise

ConveyThis

Product names and logos belong to their owners; shown to identify them for comparison, no affiliation or endorsement.

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