🌍 Translation Open source Privacy ★★★★★
LibreTranslate
Self-hostable open translation API
Overview
LibreTranslate wraps Argos engines in a REST API—Docker self-host or public libretranslate.com (non-commercial limits).
Integrate into apps, bots, and pipelines without sending text to Google.
Quality below DeepL/Google for many pairs—wins on data sovereignty.
Scores
Privacy 5/5
Ease of use 3/5
Features 3/5
Value 5/5
Google Translate — comparison
Eliminates Google cloud dependency; quality trade-off; API flexibility matches or exceeds for integrators.
Pros
- ✓ Self-host—text never leaves your network
- ✓ REST API for any integration
- ✓ Quick Docker deployment
- ✓ AGPL unlimited self-host use
Cons & caveats
- − Quality often below Google/DeepL
- − Slow on CPU without GPU at scale
- − Public instance rate limits
- − Language pair quality varies widely
Best for
- Private internal document translation
- Developers needing API control
- Fully offline environments
Not ideal for
- Best possible translation quality
- Casual non-technical daily use
- Mobile camera translation
Specs
- Pricing
- Self-hosted — Self-host free. Public API free non-commercial with rate limits.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Data location
- Self-host server or public instance operator location.
- Platforms
- Self-hosted · API · Web
完全オフライン可REST APIDocker対応無料公開インスタンス
Migration from Google Translate
- 1 Deploy LibreTranslate via Docker
- 2 Point apps/scripts to local REST API
- 3 Stop using Google Translate web/API for internal docs
- 4 Tune or custom-train models if needed
Setup steps
- 1 docker run -p 5000:5000 libretranslate/libretranslate
- 2 Open http://localhost:5000 for web UI
- 3 Read /docs for API endpoints
- 4 POST /translate from your applications