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WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, but if your content is only in one language, its reach is limited. Thankfully, WordPress translation plugins are a simple and elegant solution for that problem. With tools like like these plugins and themes with built-in translation and multi-language support, making your site accessible for a much larger audience can take minimal effort on your part.
In this article, we’ll introduce you to the best WordPress translations plugins currently available as well as highlight some of their best features.
Let’s get into it!
1. WPML
While there are a number of free options for WordPress translation plugins, WPML is a premium plugin and service that covers essentially everything that you need for translation. In fact, one of the driving forces behind WPML is that it is an all-in-one solution to translation that you get control of, not your readers’ machines. Not every site out there will need the entire WPML platform (for instance, a small personal blog may be fine to rely on Google Translate), but sites with a large international presence often need more than what a simple auto-generated, machine-created translation can offer.
With that control comes compatibility with many major plugins and services that you may already be using. From WooCommerce to Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, and Advanced Custom Fields (and more!), you can use WPML to translate them and their output for your customers. With fine control over which languages and what translations are used, you won’t need to worry about your products being presented incorrectly or your forms being labeled incoherently.
WPML is a premium-only plugin. Tiers steart at $29 for a single blog site with basic functions. They can go all the way upto $159 per site for access to the full platform. WPML is definitely worth the price, regardless of the tier you choose.
Other Key Features:
- Choice of individual languages for specific posts and pages
- Professional translation done by humans (as an add-on fee)
- If the language you need isn’t there, you can manually add it or choose from variants (such as Mexican Spanish)
Price: $29-159 per year| More information
2. GTranslate
Most internet users are familiar with Google Translate. If you’re a Chrome user, there’s a good chance you’ve had a modal pop up asking if you want a page translated from X language to your native tongue. Or perhaps you’ve copy/pasted some text into the Google search bar, and Google spat out an automatic translation. That’s the same technology that Gtranslate uses at its base.
The most useful part about GTranslate is the ability for visitors to choose which translation they want. Because the free version uses Google’s machine translation, not every single page may convey the exact information in the exact what you want. Or that is technically understandable by the reader. Which isn’t a fault of WordPress translation plugins, just the nature of translation itself. However, by providing the user a choice between translations, those polyglots who find your site will surely be able to find a translation that works for them.
Other Key Features:
- Subdomain and subdirectory structures for translations
- Automatic switch to browser’s set language
- Schema.org translations
- Translates AMP pages as well as non-AMP
Price: FREE with premium upgrade | More information
3. Loco Translate
Loco Translate is fast and lightweight, but also feature-rich. Developers can may also love what Loco Translate offers. They can tie into multiple language APIs like DeepL, Google, Microsoft, and Yandex. Additionally, the plugin gives website owners the ability to update their language files directly from the theme itself (or the plugin) without having to go through a cloud host. And because of this, you can extract translatable strings from your source code to bring specific parts of your site to life for everyone.
If there is something wrong with a translation or you need to check it for any reason, you can see the differences in the translation updates within the plugin dashboard.
Other Key Features:
- Configurable PO file backups and restoration
- Uses WordPress native locale codes
- Keyboard shortcuts built-in make using the plugin a cinch
Price: FREE | More information
4. Polylang and Lingotek
There’s nothing like a good parrot and language pun to make a WordPress translation plugin stand out. Of course, the features and functionality of Polylang are what really make it stand out, but we certainly appreciate the levity, too. With Polylang, you can set any number of languages to be translated across your site, as well as adjust which particular posts, post types, pages, and so on that get translated into particular languages. If you have a section of your WooCommerce store that caters to Spanish speakers, you can set it at that without worrying about it ever showing up in Russian or Japanese.
If one plugin weren’t enough Polylang has integration with Lingotek to provide variant translations. Lingotek is a cloud platform that ties into Polylang and lets you choose between professional translations, community/crowdsourced ones, or machine created. None of these is the right choice for everyone, but having the option of a powerful cloud-based platform tied directly into the already useful plugin makes this pair stand out.
Other Key Features:
- Can translate individual elements on your website such as widgets or custom post types
- Multiple ways to select which language is default and which languages get swapped to.
- Automatically copies tags, categories, and metadata when creating new, multilingual content
Price: FREE with premium add-ons and extensions | More information
5. TranslatePress
TranslatePress works a little differently than other WordPress translation plugins. It doesn’t require you to use just the backend of the website to work with the translations. This plugin gives a real-time look at the translations that you provide, working almost like a page-builder to make sure that your site looks and feels the same to everyone, regardless of the language they see on your site.
By giving this level of control, TranslatePress allows users to be specific about which elements of their websites get translated manually or automatically. One of the other highlights about TranslatePress is that this feature, among many others, come in the free version. Paid upgrades unlock access to add-ons and extensions and more advanced features.
Other Key Features:
- Automatic translation through Google Translate or DeepL
- WooCommerce support from the beginning
- Administrators can “view as” any user or logged out to test translation appearance
- Translate some or all of the page, custom to your needs
- Image translation
Price: FREE with premium upgrades | More information
6. Weglot
A major issue that comes up relatively often with multilingual websites is that each of the translations takes up space on the server, in your post and page list, and requires manual management. With Weglot, that’s not an issue. The plugin takes your media and your content, even the content that’s pulled from third-party sources, and translates it automatically. Meaning there is no need for maintaining multiple identical and duplicate websites.
An interesting feature for Weglot is the ability to set guidelines for what you want the translation on your site to look like. You can set it to a fast translation, which will rely on Google, Yandex, and DeepL (among others) to translate your site automatically. You can take full control over it and enter your own translations for specific languages manually. And if you have the budget and need, a human translator can work on the most accurate content possible. Weglot also provides a glossary of phrases and terms (your brand name, for instance) to never translate so it stays consistent across the site.
Other Key Features:
- Visual, real-time translations
- Compatible with Shopify and other platforms you integrate with
- Automatic redirection for recognized languages
Price: 99 Euros per year | More information
7. MultilingualPress
As a WordPress translation plugin, MultilingualPress is top-tier. The ongoing development for the plugin has been consistent over time, and the newest features implemented definitely take this premium plugin to the next level. The plugin boasts to be optimized for WooCommerce, allowing you to work with multiple storefronts and translate the products easily. Additionally, the plugin syncs your Yoast SEO data into the relevant language as well as doing the same thing for custom fields (including those made with ACF.
As a premium service, MultilingualPress is definitely not something for everyday blogs. However, for enterprise businesses and websites with many international customers, the pricing for the service is not bad. At $99 per year, a site can get 3 languages supported on a single site. In many cases, this could be enough, as you are likely going to base your translation choices on analytics data and metrics, which will probably have visitors from under 5 countries (and maybe even fewer languages) making up the majority of your traffic and users.
Other Key Features:
- Page builder support with more promised in the future
- Gutenberg blocks translation available
- Cache system allows control over what content gets translated
- Performance benchmarks for you to check database integrity and use
Price: $99 per year and up | More information
8. Google Website Translator
Google Website Translator is fast, effective, simple, and easy. When you want a lightweight and efficient plugin, this one will do it. It translates your content and other plugins, theme defaults, and you can set it all up with either a widget or a shortcode.
Any part of your site that you need translated can be done just by using a shortcode. Without the need to bring in any files from other platforms, this plugin simply does the job automatically and leaves you to handle the other parts of the website administration.
Other Key Features:
- Lightweight and doesn’t slowdown page speed
- Import and export your settings and configurations for multiple sites
- Inline help for setting it up, so you don’t have to be a dev or a translator to understand what the plugin is doing
Price: FREE | More information
9. Transposh
Transposh takes an interesting approach to making your website accessible to others. While the plugin itself can use many of the standard automatic translators, such as Bing, Yandex, or Google, you also have the option of hiring a professional translation through the plugin. Additionally, when someone is browsing your site and sees an error in the translation, they can adjust the text to what it needs to be, right then and there.
By giving the users the power to help translate your site, many returning customers will be drawn back because they will know your site is correct and accurate. Additionally, by crowdsourcing this sort of feature, you get real language usage and not simply formal rules that machine translations use. That alone makes your translated website more usable than many others.
Other Key Features:
- Translates comments and external plugins
- Supports RTL languages and themes
- Fast performance thanks to APC cache
- Customizable translation-choice widget
Price: FREE| More information
10. Multilanguage
Multilanguage is a very powerful WordPress translation plugin, but it is mostly designed for those users who already have a translation of their site and need a way to implement it. While this plugin does support automatic Google translation, the big draw is the ease with which you can provide your own translations to posts and pages, categories, menus, and tags.
The free version of the plugin can handle what most blogs and sites need for translation, but if you need more than what comes for free, the Pro upgrade includes translations for WordPress taxonomies, page builder compatibility, custom fields, and language slug position changes (such as en.example.com versus example.com/en).
Other Key Features:
- Gutenberg and Classic Editor-compatible
- Customizable language switcher
- Choose the default language
- Website search in translated language
- Translates the WordPress admin dashboard
Price: FREE with Pro upgrade | More information
Wrapping Up with WordPress Translation Plugins
There is no lack of WordPress translation plugins that you can choose from. However, choosing the right plugin is a bit more difficult. Site owners should weigh their audience’s needs and demographics versus what kind of content their site provides. Some plugins work best with stores. Others work best with huge enterprise blogs with dozens of custom taxonomies and post types. From specialized human-translated content to API-powered machine versions of the same content, your readers across the globe will have access to each and every word you have to say.
What do you think is most important when choosing WordPress translation plugins?
Article featured image by igor kisselev / shutterstock.com
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