7 Best Machine Translation Software of 2023 (Ranked and Compared)
Many are aware of the benefits of using closed captioning software. Reading what is being said on screen is beneficial, whether watching a movie or going through a training course.
In addition, using OCR software, text can be converted from an image format to an editable text format, allowing you to process it as needed.
Then, translation software can harness the combined power of both these tools in any business that wants to be successful in today’s global economy.
But what if a business wants to take things to the next level and truly go global?
That is where machine translation software comes into the picture.
This tool is designed to quickly and accurately translate your content into multiple languages with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
In this article, I rank and compare the best machine translation software based on their features, pricing, translation abilities, automation features, and more, aiming to help you find the right tool for your business.
Let’s get right into it.
What Are The Best Machine Translation Software?
The following are the best machine translation software to consider.
1. SYSTRAN Translate.
Best Overall Machine Translation.
SYSTRAN Translate helps you convert any Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or PDF document into multiple languages.
Keeping your layout, graphs, and illustrations intact, SYSTRAN Translate produces accurate translations that read naturally in the target language.
With the output being editable if you need to make changes, this machine translation software is a good choice for all types of business users.
You can also use Advanced User Dictionaries to create your glossary of terms for even more accurate translations.
Setting up custom rules allows you to fine-tune your translations and get the desired results.
The company also offers a SYSTRAN browser extension that you can use to translate web pages on the fly.
Key Features:
- Unlimited text translation allows for large document or file conversions with editable output.
- Translate PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and emails into multiple languages with the output looking natural in the target language.
- API access allows developers to integrate SYSTRAN into their applications or systems.
- Microsoft Office, CAT & TMS Integration makes it easy to use SYSTRAN with your existing workflows.
User Experience:
The user interface makes it easy to see which jobs are lined up and their respective statuses.
In addition, choosing between text, file, or web translation is a great feature.
Pricing:
These are the pricing plans on offer by Systran:
- Translate Pro: $ 5.49
- Translate Pro Plus: $ 15.49
- Translate Pro Premium: $ 34.99
These are on a per month/user basis, paid annually.
What I Like/Dislike About Systran
Like:
- A variety of language pairings ensures that you can use this software for multiple language translations.
- Customization options deliver higher efficiency compared to other translation software.
Dislike:
- The translation quality could be improved with some languages like Bengali and Hindi.
Product Updates:
- The SYSTRAN Model Studio now allows users to create domain-specific translations.
2. Unbabel.
Best For API Translations.
Unbabel creates a customer-focused translation environment by allowing you to convert your documents and emails into multiple languages.
Whether it’s marketing workflows or customer service communications, Unbabel can help you save time and money by automating your translations.
Made for businesses of all sizes, Unbabel gives accurate results that sound natural in the target language.
By combining the speed of machine translation, the polished results of professional translators, and the accuracy of advanced artificial intelligence, Unbabel is an excellent machine translation software for business users.
Key Features:
- Hire for expertise, not language skills, by utilizing Unbabel’s talent marketplace to find the right translator for your project in minutes.
- Streamline all your language processes by integrating Unbabel into your existing workflows and systems using their APIs.
- Get a holistic view of your language strategy with real-time analytics showing how well your translations perform.
- Translate wherever you are with the Unbabel mobile app.
User Experience:
It is helpful to have detailed documentation that goes into various use cases when using their API.
When it comes to getting started, this level of detail in their manuals is reassuring and makes the software easier to use.
Pricing:
There are two pricing plans on offer.
- Standard: Perfect for handling moderate levels of translation
- Enterprise: Best suited for managing significant translation volumes and peaks
You’ll have to speak to their sales team about pricing.
What I Like/Dislike About Unbabel
Like:
- The Unbabel team creates a good relationship of support as they’re always available to help with any issues you may have.
- Unbabel integration with Zendesk is fantastic and makes handling customer service a breeze.
Dislike:
- More information about QA reviews would be helpful to ensure translation quality.
Product Updates:
- Customizing privacy features means clients can choose how Unbabel uses their data when it comes to the features they use.
3. memoQ Translator PRO.
Best For Windows Translation.
memoQ Translator PRO is a computer-assisted translation environment that helps you manage your translation projects from start to finish.
With everything in one place, memoQ Translator PRO makes it easy to keep track of your translations and ensure that they are accurate and consistent.
Designed by translators for translators, memoQ Translator PRO is created for users that want to run the software on a standard Windows operating system, allowing users to work without installing any additional hardware.
An advanced translator workspace, memoQ Translator PRO offers many features to help you with your translations, including translation memories, terminology management, quality assurance, and project management tools.
Using a single key, you can import tables or external term base files, features that help you work more efficiently.
With notifications that show you when you are using terms that are not in your word base, you can be confident that your translations are accurate.
Furthermore, memoQ remembers every segment you translate, so you can quickly find and reuse translations, saving you time and effort.
Key Features:
- Collaborate with the right people as memoQ Translator Pro allows you to manage user roles and permissions, giving you complete control over who can work on what.
- Get productive by taking advantage of memoQ Translator Pro’s many features that help you work more efficiently, including translation memories, terminology management, quality assurance, and project management tools.
- Translation memory allows you to quickly find and reuse translations, saving time and effort.
- Termbase ensures that your translations are accurate by showing you when you’re using terms that are not in your word base.
User Experience:
The ability to use memoQ Translator PRO as you would any other application installed on your Windows machine makes it easy to get started.
The interface is straightforward, with the various options placed in separate menus.
Pricing:
You can get a customized proposal by contacting their sales team.
If you’re a freelance translator, you can get started with memoQ translator pro for $770.
What I Like/Dislike About memoQ Translator PRO
Like:
- Various programming language support allows you to use memoQ with many software applications.
- Even if you use challenging term bases and translation memories, you can still take full advantage of the software.
Dislike:
- You can’t work offline, so an internet connection is required to use this software.
Product Updates:
- memoQ cloud is now offered as a software as a service (SaaS) application, offering all the features of the memoQ server in the cloud.
4. Smartling.
Best For Offering A Translation Suite.
Smartling allows you to reach global audiences by providing an omnichannel brand experience.
This platform is an excellent machine translation software for business users, giving you everything you need to manage translation and localization.
With an easy-to-use platform and services that scale with your business, Smartling helps you streamline your language processes, giving you more time to focus on your core business.
Centralize all your linguistic assets under one roof with Smartling and localize any content as needed.
You can manage your translations from a single platform with a CAT tool that integrates with all your content management systems.
Key Features:
- End-to-end translation management helps you optimize time, energy, and cost by automating your processes from start to finish.
- Translation proxy allows you to manage all your translations from a single platform.
- Translation analytics provides insights into your translation processes, helping you improve efficiency and quality.
User Experience:
Label your projects correctly and identify any issues that need to be addressed before translation begins.
The handy information regarding the number of strings and words in a project also lets you know how big a project is compared to others so that you can prioritize accordingly.
Pricing:
You’ll have to book a demo to get a personalized quote.
What I Like/Dislike About Smartling
Like:
- Manual action is drastically reduced thanks to the available automation.
- Customer support is available when you need it.
Dislike:
- A confirmation email when a job is ready would be appreciated.
Product Updates:
New filters for tags, dates, and string ingestion warnings ensure the accuracy and completeness of your translations.
5. Crowdin.
Best For Agile Localization.
Crowdin provides agile localization for tech companies that want to go global.
With a single dashboard to manage all your projects, Crowdin is an excellent machine translation software for business users that need to localize their content to reach global audiences.
Whether you’re looking to translate your website, mobile app, or software, Crowdin can help.
The ability to create tasks, generate reports, and watch progress in real-time helps you stay on top of your localization projects.
You can also collaborate on any project by discussing and modifying translations directly on the Crowdin platform.
Finally, you can add context to any project, so everyone is on the same page regarding the final output.
This separates Crowdin from other machine translation software and can be the differentiating factor when maintaining your brand’s voice.
Key Features:
- Invite users and define permission levels to give people access to your project as needed.
- Advanced reports, such as cost estimation and translation costs, help you manage your projects effectively.
- Permission granularity allows you to control what people can do within your content.
- The translation vendor marketplace gives you access to a network of translation professionals.
- Vendor organizations allow you to work with multiple vendors on a single project.
- GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket/Azure Repos integration allows you to manage your translations directly from your code repository.
User Experience:
A simple source and output field on the main page make it easy to select what you need to translate.
You can also group your projects by language, making it easy to find what you’re looking for.
Pricing:
Request a demo to get a personalized quote.
What I Like/Dislike About Crowdin
Like:
- Plenty of integrations, including Github, make it easy to manage your translations.
- You can quickly search through your projects and find the information you need.
Dislike:
- The ability to add a tone of voice and brand-specific language would take this software to the next level.
Product Updates:
- The Crowdin marketplace allows you to add content directly through third-party apps that include Notion, Typedream, Sitecore, and more. This feature now makes it easy to start localization.
6. TextUnited.
Best For Creating A Termbase.
TextUnited uses highly sophisticated technologies to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent translations.
With a focus on quality, TextUnited is an excellent machine translation software for business users that need to localize their content to reach global audiences.
With a vast neural network that’s constantly learning, TextUnited can provide more accurate translations than other machine translation software.
This platform looks at the probabilities of particular words’ sequences when translating, which results in more accurate translations.
In addition, considering the whole source sentence when translating generates better results and maintains the context of your content.
Key Features:
- Simplicity and flexibility when it comes to working with your content.
- Terminology loop to create a termbase and use it for all future projects.
- The best engine for the job, whether it’s statistical or neural, will be used depending on the type of content you’re translating.
- Recycling and training using your past translations provides more accurate results.
Pricing:
These are the pricing plans on offer:
- Free: $ 0 per month
- Basic: $ 70 per month
- Essential: $ 250 per month
- Custom: Contact the sales team for more information.
7. Azure Translator Text API.
Best For Handling Bulk Projects.
Microsoft’s Azure Translator batches translations into more than 100 languages, so if you’re looking for quantity, Azure might be the best machine translation software.
This platform is designed to be scalable and handle large amounts of text quickly and efficiently.
With a wide range of use cases, Azure can be used for everything from website localization to chatbot development.
With integration allowing for a single REST API call to translate text, this machine translation software can be easily integrated into your current operating methods.
You can also use the programming language of choice (Python, Java, C, Go, and JavaScript) to customize your experience with Azure further.
If you want your translations to reflect domain-specific terminology, you can then create a custom translation model with Azure.
Finally, you can scale up or down depending on your needs so that you’re only paying for what you use.
Key Features:
- Broad language coverage ensures that your content can be translated into more than 100 languages.
- Customizable translations allow you to create a custom translation model that reflects domain-specific terminology.
- Being production-ready means the platform is designed to quickly and efficiently handle large amounts of text quickly and efficiently.
Pricing:
This platform offers either pay-as-you-go translation or commitment tiers.
There are also discounts for volume, so the more you use Azure, the cheaper it becomes.
Other machine translation software not mentioned in this article includes Deepl, Bing, Microsoft Translator, and Amazon Translate.
What Are Machine Translation Software?
Sometimes referred to as a machine translation engine, this software uses algorithms to translate text from one language to another.
With the translation process becoming a crucial part of business in today’s globalized economy, machine translation software has become an essential tool for many companies.
Over the years, the quality of machine translations has improved significantly, thanks mainly to better machine translation engines constantly being developed.
With translation tools now forming an integral part of business operations for many companies, a wide variety of machine translation software options are available on the market.
While many think of Google Translate as the default machine translation tool, several other options may better suit your specific needs while providing more accurate results.
Top Features Of Machine Translation Software
A machine translation service is only as good as its features, and the best machine translation software should offer a comprehensive set of features to cover all your needs.
With various providers offering different features, it can be helpful to know what to look for when choosing a machine translation software.
Translation Management System
Translation services need to be managed, and that is where having a central dashboard comes in handy.
A sound translation management system will let you see all the content that needs to be translated in one place, and it will also give you the ability to track the progress of each translation project.
This is essential for keeping on top of your content strategy and ensuring that all your translations are completed on time.
Automated Translation
Deep learning allows translations to be completed with a higher accuracy level, making it possible to automate the translation process.
The functionality offered by automation can be a huge time saver for busy companies who need to translate large amounts of content regularly.
Various Language Pairs
Whether you want to translate content from English to Spanish, French to German, or any other language combination, choosing a machine translation software that offers a wide range of language pairs is essential.
Being able to convert text to different languages as and when needed can be a huge time saver, giving you the flexibility to target your content to a global audience.
Statistical Machine Translation
Statistical machine translation is a type of machine translation that relies on statistical models to generate translations.
This approach can be efficient and is often used with neural machine translation to produce even more accurate results.
Neural machine translation teachers itself how to translate by learning from vast amounts of decoded data.
It’s good to consider that a neural machine translation service might produce more accurate results than a human translator.
Accurate Translations
High-quality machine translation software is essential for any business that needs to translate content regularly.
A machine translation system that can produce accurate results will save you time and effort in the long run, as you won’t need to go through and check each translation for accuracy.
Adaptable Pricing Models For Various Needs
The machine translation service’s algorithms should handle various document types, languages, and translation needs.
Whether a business pays on a per-word translation or per-project basis, it is essential to ensure that the machine translation software can handle the type and volume of content that needs to be translated.
Mobile Translation
Some businesses also offer a language service that generates translation results directly from one’s mobile device.
While this is not a standard feature, it can benefit businesses that need to translate content on the go.
With natural language being one of the hardest things for machines to understand, a platform that provides accurate mobile translation can become the next best provider when translating small amounts of text.
Whether it’s on iOS or Android, several machine translation apps can already be downloaded and used on mobile devices, and their quality is improving.
Human Translation Vs Machine Translations
While language translation technology has improved dramatically in recent years, there are still some challenges that machine translation services face when delivering accurate results.
In particular, translating idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms can be difficult for a machine translation system.
This is where human translators come in.
Using computer-assisted translation tools, human translators can get the most out of machine translation services by quickly translating large amounts of text and then editing the results to ensure accuracy.
This approach is often used by businesses that need to translate massive volumes of content regularly and with a high level of accuracy.
A machine translation provider that offers both human and machine translation services can be an excellent option for businesses that need the best of both worlds.
Best Machine Translation Software – FAQ
What Is An MT Engine?
An MT engine is a computer program that translates text from one language to another.
Moreover, with NMT (natural machine translation) engines, businesses can communicate with customers and employees in different languages quickly and accurately.
What Are Different Formats That Machine Translation Can Be Used In?
Machine translation can be used in various formats, including text, audio, and video.
Based on the type of content needed, there are different machine translation software that you can use.
Doing your research to find which content format the software you’re interested in supports is essential.
Wrap Up.
Machine translation has come a long way in recent years and can produce accurate results in many languages.
Using a machine translation service can save time and effort for businesses needing to regularly translate large volumes of content.
When choosing a machine translation software, it is essential to, amongst other features, consider the types of content that need to be translated, the languages that are supported, and the price.
This will give you the best results for the price you’ll pay.
Have you used machine translation software before?
What was your experience?
Let me know in the comments below.
Further reading on AdamEnfroy.com: Transcription software can be used as the first step of a translation process.
Such software allows you to quickly transcribe audio or video content into text which can then be translated using a machine translation service.
This means that using the best transcription software, you can transcript audio files in a matter of minutes, making it an excellent option for businesses that work with large volumes of content.
Moreover, suppose you want to provide an all-around excellent customer experience.
In that case, you could also use a knowledge base software to have all your translated content in one place, allowing employees and customers to quickly find the information they need in their respective languages.
