What is translation software?

Three kinds of translation software

"Translation software" covers tools that translate text for you, tools that help you translate it yourself, and tools that let your software request translations.

The distinction matters when you're choosing what to use. If you want a machine to produce a translation, you're looking at machine translation. If you're a translator working through text, you're looking at computer-assisted translation, or CAT. If you're adding translation to a site or app, you're looking at an API.

They aren't separate worlds. An API is a way to request a translation, not a translation method.

Machine translation

Machine translation is software translating text rather than a person writing the translation. According to a Nordic Council of Ministers overview, it's gone through three main methods: rule-based machine translation (RBMT), statistical machine translation (SMT) and neural machine translation (NMT).

Those names describe the method. They don't tell you whether you need a translator's workspace or a way to connect translation to your app. That's a separate choice.

You don't need to start with the acronyms. Start with the job: do you want software to translate the text, or do you want help doing the translation yourself?

CAT tools and translation memory

CAT stands for computer-assisted translation. These tools help human translators work faster; they don't mean handing the whole job to a machine.

A translation memory stores source segments alongside their translations, letting you reuse text you've translated before when it repeats. That's the distinction Microsoft Learn makes: the memory holds past source and target segments. It isn't generating a new translation.

What does a paid tool cost? As of November 2026, the listed plans include:

• Trados Go costs £24 a month or £288 a year. Professional and Team pricing is by quote, and there's a 14-day trial.
• memoQ TMS Starter starts at €2,750 ($3,025) a year, including 5 linguist subscriptions. Its trial lasts 14 days.
• Smartcat Adapt starts at $1,200 a year, with unlimited users and 100,000 Smartwords a year. There's a 15-day trial.

Watch the plan names. You're comparing Trados Go, memoQ TMS Starter and Smartcat Adapt here, not interchangeable subscriptions with matching allowances.

Translation APIs

An API lets your software request translations. You're choosing a connection your site or app can use, rather than a workspace where you sit and translate.

The listed prices and free allowances differ:

• Google Cloud Translation charges $20 per million characters after 500,000 free a month.
• DeepL API Developer gives you 1,000,000 characters free once.
• Microsoft Translator includes 2 million characters a month free.
• SYSTRAN API costs €14.99 per million characters.

Notice "once" versus "a month." Those aren't the same allowance.

Translinga, made by Bitgate, is a translation API for Shopify stores, WordPress sites and apps. It's in early access: use the Get early access button on translinga.com to ask for a key. No card needed.

Its Fast tier costs $2.50 per million characters; Quality costs $5.00 per million. Every character counts, including spaces, once per target language. You prepay credit from $5, and it never expires. The first $1 is free, covering about 400,000 characters on Fast.

Strings already translated in the same context come back from memory for free, in about 2 ms. There's a glossary, such as specifying that cart always becomes winkelmandje in Dutch, plus a do-not-translate list.

And if you're already using DeepL API requests, it accepts them as they are, including the DeepL-Auth-Key header. DeepL's own Node and Python libraries work when pointed at https://api.translinga.com. Switching means changing one URL and the key.

Free and open-source tools

Matecat is free and open source under LGPL. OmegaT is free and open source under GPL v3.

Keep those separate from a paid tool's trial or an API's free character allowance. Here, you're looking at free tools with open-source licenses, not a subscription you can try for a limited time.

Which one you need

If you're translating text yourself and want to reuse past translations, look at CAT tools and translation memory. If you want software to produce the translation, look at machine translation.

Building translation into a site or app? Look at APIs, including how their character charges and free allowances work.

For a software team managing strings and translators, localization platforms are another option: Lokalise starts at $149 a month, and Crowdin Pro costs $75 a month.