WPML alternatives: five plugins and services compared

The WPML alternatives worth a look split into three groups. Polylang keeps WPML's model of one WordPress post per language at a lower entry price. TranslatePress and LangRelay keep a single post and translate the page WordPress renders. Weglot and Linguise are hosted services that take the translation work off your server altogether. Which group fits depends on what made you look beyond WPML.

I build LangRelay. What follows about WPML and the four other vendors is as their own sites stated it on 7 October 2026.

Why sites move off WPML#

WPML stores each translation as a WordPress post linked to the original, translates page builder layouts and WooCommerce stores on its CMS and Agency plans, and can hold AI translations as drafts for a Translation Manager to approve. Its translations also keep showing on your site if you stop renewing. The reasons people look elsewhere come from the same design.

A post per language multiplies the content you maintain. A site with 40 pages, each translated into four languages, holds 200 posts, and a layout change made to an original has to reach the four posts that translate it. With Translate Everything Automatically switched on, WPML picks up edits and translates them; without it, you send each change to translation yourself.

Price is the other reason. WPML has no free plan, and its prices exclude VAT. Multilingual Blog costs €39 a year for one production site but leaves out AI translation, the Advanced Translation Editor, String Translation and WooCommerce support. Multilingual CMS, at €99 a year for three production sites, includes 22,500 AI words. Past those and the 500 free AI words WPML gives each month, AI translation is pay as you go, priced in monthly volume bands: €3.00 per 1,000 words for the first 2,000 paid words in a month, falling band by band to €0.40 only past 2,500,000 words in a month.

The alternatives, side by side#

Each vendor's entry price as listed on its own pricing page on 7 October 2026.

Polylang: the same model for less#

Polylang keeps WPML's model of a post per language and has a free version. The free plugin on WordPress.org has no limit on the number of languages and supports a subdirectory, subdomain or separate domain per language. Each translation is again its own post, so the maintenance cost of a post per language stays.

The gap is machine translation. Polylang Pro, from €99 a year for one site, connects to DeepL with your own API key and translates one post, page or product at a time. Polylang's DeepL guide says the integration does not work with content built in Elementor, Divi and some other page builders, and that editing the original does not update its DeepL translation. WooCommerce needs a separate add-on, Polylang for WooCommerce, from €99 a year, which works with the free plugin or with Pro. If you translate by hand anyway, the free plugin may be all you need. The WPML vs Polylang comparison goes through the two plugin by plugin.

TranslatePress and LangRelay: one post per page#

Both of these leave your posts alone and translate what WordPress renders, so a layout change made once applies to every language.

TranslatePress stores each translation in its own database tables, one string at a time, and its front-end editor lets you translate on a live preview of the page, even in the free version. Paid plans start with Personal at €99 a year, which includes 50,000 TranslatePress AI words, its SEO Pack for translated slugs and metadata, and as many languages as you add. If the licence expires, TranslatePress's FAQ says the plugin keeps working as configured, without its AI. I found no approval step for single translations on TranslatePress's site; with automatic translation on, a new string is translated the first time a visitor opens the page in that language.

By default LangRelay puts a translation live as soon as it is ready, and free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price. To approve every page yourself, as WPML can be set to do, choose Ask me first. Its plugin tells LangRelay about each edit roughly a minute after it is saved, only the new text is translated, and Relay, a built-in agent, drafts the changes you ask for in plain language. During the pilot LangRelay translates between nine languages, against WPML's 65 pre-configured ones, it does not write a multilingual XML sitemap, and translated slugs are set by hand.

Weglot and Linguise: hosted translation#

A hosted service keeps translations off your WordPress database. Weglot stores them in its own database and charges by the total number of translated words your site holds across languages, a total that does not renew: Starter is €15 a month for one language and 10,000 words. Linguise charges per domain, counts source words times languages, and sells 200,000 words on START for $15 a month with no limit on languages. Both suit a site owner who would rather not run translation inside WordPress at all. By default, neither holds a new translation back for approval.

A worked example: what one edit costs#

Say you rewrite a 300-word section of a 2,000-word page translated into three languages, and the page ends up the same length. A worked example, using each vendor's documented rules.

WPML's rule makes it cheap to keep an existing page current, and that is worth weighing before you leave. It applies only with Translate Everything Automatically and PTC; WPML's pricing page says every other path pays per updated word. The cost of WPML shows up on new pages and on sites that need more AI words than a licence includes.

Before you switch#

Moving from WPML to another post-per-language plugin means checking how the new plugin will link the posts WPML created, since WPML records those links in its own database tables. Moving to a one-post tool means the translated posts WPML created become unused content, and the new tool builds its translations from the originals. Either way, list the translated slugs you rely on first, so you can set the same URLs again.

For a closer look at the pairs, read TranslatePress vs WPML, Weglot vs WPML and LangRelay vs WPML. The Polylang alternatives page covers the next step if Polylang's manual workflow is the sticking point.