The 8 Best WordPress Translation Plugins for Multilingual Websites

Are you having trouble deciding which WordPress translation plugin to use to develop a multilingual website?

It’s a difficult decision to make because it’s difficult to swap plugins later on, so you want to get things perfect from the start.

WordPress translation plugins are a cost-effective way to publish material in many languages, and there are several excellent free and paid translation options.

We’ve compiled a list of the finest WordPress translation plugins for you to check out:

Weglot

Weglot approaches WordPress translation in an entirely new way. It can be pricey depending on your needs, but it’s also highly convenient and offers a lot of time-saving features.
Depending on your budget and accuracy requirements, Weglot offers three simple options to translate your website:

Machine Translation: The simplest and most efficient technique. However, because a machine does it, you can’t be certain it’s accurate.

Manual Translation: You can use a visual editor or a cloud-based. PO file to create your website. It’s better if you know the language… nonetheless, it is time-consuming.

Professional Translation: You may easily hire a professional translator to help you with your content. Professional content is automatically uploaded to the translated version of your site once it arrives. It is more expensive, but it is more accurate and saves time.

Pros:

User-friendly translation plugin.
The quick and easy setup process.
The Weglot cloud interface makes it simple to manage your translations and/or outsource them to expert services.

TranslatePress

Translations are shown in real-time using this plugin, and both manual and automatic translation methods are supported. It works with Gutenberg blocks, shortcodes, WooCommerce, and the vast majority of themes.

You can also use its SEO pack to translate metadata, use a simple shortcode to add language switchers and translate dynamic get text generated by WordPress and other plugins and themes.

Pros:

SEO-friendly
Regularly updated by the developer community
Self-hosted service

Polylang

Polylang is a free WordPress self-translation language plugin that allows you to choose your preferred language pack from your profile and have it downloaded automatically. It allows you to separate your site into subdomains for each language and provides a widget in the navigation menu for switching between languages.

Custom taxonomies, sticky posts, and RSS feeds are all supported by this open-source plugin, which supports as many languages as your site demands. It can also be used in conjunction with Lingotek Translation, the next plugin on our list, to provide automatic language translation.

Pros:

Lightweight and easy to use
Free of cost
SEO-friendly and indexable

MultilingualPress

The MultilingualPress plugin implies that you’re utilizing WordPress Multisite to provide different languages to your clients.

This plugin’s excellent fault tolerance prevents data loss, which is one of its most notable features. If a prior version of a post is deleted, the connected postings will remain. If the translated pages are handled one at a time, they will be secure as well. This eliminates the need to retranslate if inadvertent deletions occur.

Pros:

Uses WordPress Multisite
SEO-friendly
Over 800 default languages in the language manager

Google Website Translator

Another multilingual solution that makes use of Google Translate is Prisma’s Google Website Translator. It can function as a widget or a shortcode. It’s also a speedy and light option because, unlike other translation plugins, it doesn’t rely on external javascript and CSS.
This plugin allows you to translate your website into over 100 languages and has a simple setup process that will get you up and running in no time. The key benefit of this plugin is that it stores all of the settings in a single database record and does not load any external files, making it one of the fastest translation plugins in the WordPress library.

Pros:

SEO-friendly
High on page loading speed
Easy to use plugin

WPML

WPML is another popular multilingual WordPress translation plugin. A sophisticated translation management system is included in the plugin, allowing you to translate plugins, themes, website content, and more.

It comes with a user-friendly interface for adding translations and maintaining multilingual content on your site. All post kinds, taxonomies, custom fields, and strings generated by your themes and plugins are supported by WPML.

This plugin, which is described as “full, compatible, and dependable,” allows you to translate any element of your website.

Pros:

Automatic translation option
Browser language detection
Easy to use interface

Loco Translate

Loco Translate is a browser extension that allows you to modify WordPress translation files while also integrating an automatic translation service. Because of its built-in API, Loco Translate will operate with an automatic translation engine you use.

Language files can be updated via the plugin, theme, or even the browser.

The plugin can also extract strings and produce templates, making it very useful for programmers.

Pros:

Built-in translation editor
Built-in WordPress locale codes
Portable object features, including comments, references, etc.

Lingotek Translation

You have three options for translating your material with Lingotek Translation.

Machine Translation: It generates content in your selected language using the Microsoft Translation tool, and it’s free for the first 100,000 characters.

Community Translation: The text editor provided inside the plugin’s workbench must be used to create translations.

Professional Translation: To finish the process, you must invest money and recruit competent Lingotek personnel.

It’s an excellent alternative for people who wish to start small and work their way up to more complex language implementations because of its versatility. Lingotek can swiftly and accurately translate your content with the support of more than 5,000 in-country translators using a cloud-based translation and localization process, and the plugin integrates with Polylang.

Pros:

Ever-growing translator community
Transparent process

Wrapping Up:

All of these plugins have the same goal of increasing the number of people that visit your WordPress site.

The Multilingual Translation plugin may dramatically increase the reach of your website, allowing more people to read, remain up to date, and interact with the content.

It’s critical to select a translation plugin that has a wide range of customization options, language compatibility, automated and manual translation capabilities and is simple to use.