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Alternatives to Google Translate
Translate text and pages without handing every sentence to a search company.
Ranked by score out of 30, most convivial first.
Firefox Translations
Translate web pages inside Firefox, with the language packs and the work all on your own device.
Translate Locally
A desktop app that translates text on your own machine with small, fast models.
Argos Translate
An offline translation library for Python, with a command line and a simple desktop app.
LibreTranslate
A translation server you run yourself, with a web page and an API and no dependence on Google or Azure.
Lingva Translate
A Google Translate front end that fetches translations without your browser visiting Google.
For comparison
The big names these tools are measured against. We review them as benchmarks, so they sit outside the directory.
About these tools
Pasting a private message into a free translator hands the text to whoever runs it. The tools here translate on your own device or your own server. Firefox Translations does it inside the browser, Translate Locally and Argos Translate run on your computer, LibreTranslate gives you a translation server of your own, and Lingva Translate is a middleman that keeps your browser away from Google, although the translations still come from there.
The trade-off is coverage. The offline models handle fewer languages than the biggest services, so try your language pair before you commit.
How to choose
Start with where you read. In a browser, the Firefox feature is the easy way in. For documents or a team, run LibreTranslate or Translate Locally. Check that your language pair exists, because coverage differs more than anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an offline alternative to Google Translate?
Firefox Translations works offline once the language packs are installed, and Translate Locally and Argos Translate run on your own computer.
Can I run my own translation server?
Yes. LibreTranslate is a self-hosted server with an API, powered by Argos Translate.
Does Lingva stop Google from seeing what I translate?
Lingva says it prevents Google from tracking you, but the translations still come from Google through scraping, and its page does not say what Google can see of the instance's requests.