LibreTranslate

Self-hosted translation API built on Argos Translate with no dependency on commercial cloud services.

Open SourceSelf HostedOffline Capable
0.0 (0)

About

Privacy-focused deployments reach for LibreTranslate when they need a translation API with no Google or Azure dependency. The server wraps the Argos Translate neural engine and its installable language packs in a REST API and web interface, self-hosted with pip install libretranslate, Docker (including a CUDA compose file for GPU inference), or Kubernetes; once language models are downloaded, the whole stack runs offline on commodity hardware, and the documentation lists 59 supported languages. Licensing is AGPL-3.0, the repository has about 15,500 stars, and documentation lives at docs.libretranslate.com. For teams that would rather not run infrastructure, a hosted instance at libretranslate.com offers the same API with paid keys, Pro at 29 dollars a month for bursts up to 80 translations a minute and Business at 58 dollars a month for up to 200, and the revenue funds development. It has become a default choice for open-source projects and privacy-sensitive products that need machine translation on their own hardware.

Should you use LibreTranslate?

Pick it when

Pick LibreTranslate when several apps or users need a shared translation API on your own hardware with no text sent to Google or Azure, deployed via Docker or Kubernetes, or when you want the same API hosted for a monthly fee.

Look elsewhere when

Skip it if you only translate inside one Python program, where Argos Translate directly is less to run. Under AGPL-3.0, a modified version you offer over a network must share its source with users, which some companies rule out.

Alternatives to LibreTranslate

  • Argos Translate

    The underlying engine as an MIT or CC0 library with no server to operate, simpler for a single app, but no REST API or web UI.

  • CTranslate2

    Fast inference engine for serving your own Transformer translation models, more model control, but you build the API and language handling.

  • Transformers

    Runs larger multilingual checkpoints with more model choice, but no ready API server or language packs, and some popular ones such as NLLB are non-commercial.

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Details

Price
Freemium
Platform
Hybrid
Difficulty
Easy (2/5)
License
AGPL-3.0
Added
Jul 29, 2026

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