Top 5 WordPress Translation Plugins for Multilingual Websites

There are number of WordPress plugins which can be use to create multilingual WordPress websites.

However, WordPress does not come with the built-in capability to create a multilingual websites. But, there are some powerful WordPress translation plugins that allow you to easily add multilingual content to your site.

In this article, we will show you the top 5 WordPress translation plugins that you can use to create multilingual websites. We will take a look at their features, pros and cons, to help you pick the best option for your website.

1. TranslatePress

TranslatePress is a powerful WordPress multilingual plugin to translate every aspect of your website. The main feature of TranslatePress is that it allows you to translate directly from the front-end.

We can easily switch languages during the translation, and the live preview will change instantly. Another benefit of this plugin is that you can translate post content, plugins, themes and even meta-data without changing the interface.

You can translate yourself or assign the custom translator user role to any user on your site. These users will be able to translate content without access to the admin area.

The plugin creates SEO friendly URLs for all languages, which gives you a boost in local SEO results.

2. WPML

WPML is one of the most popular WordPress multilingual plugin. It comes with a powerful translation management system that allows you to translate content, themes, plugins and many more.

This plugin comes with an easy to use interface to add translations and manage multilingual content across your WordPress website. WPML supports all post types, taxonomies, custom post types and strings generated by your WordPress themes and plugins.

It also allows you to connect your website to third-party translation service providers. You can select which content needs to be translated and get it submitted directly to your website.

3. Polylang

Polylang is another powerful plugin to easily create a multilingual WordPress website. It comes with a simple interface to easily add translations for your posts, pages, custom post types, widgets and more.

Plugin does not come with support to translate your WordPress theme and plugins. The default plugin doesn’t include eCommerce support, so you will need to purchase a paid version for that.

It allows you to setup SEO friendly URLs for each language and it works well with popular WordPress SEO plugins. You can add the language switcher to your website using a sidebar widget to change language.

4. Google Website Translator

Google Website Translator plugin provides Google Translate API to translate your website content. It uses the default Google translate button which you can display anywhere on your website.

You can select the languages you want to show in the language switcher, which can be displayed using an inline shortcode or sidebar widget.

The shortcode feature allows you to offer custom translations for specific pages as needed. The translated page will be visible to users when they select the language or the plugin detects it via their browser settings.

5. MultilingualPress

MultilingualPress takes a slightly different approach to create multilingual websites with WordPress. Instead of running on a normal WordPress install, it uses the built-in WordPress multisite network for each language.

This allows the plugin to efficiently manage content for each language while improving performance by loading one language at a time. It comes with an easy interface to manage your translations from a single dashboard.

It supports posts, pages, custom post types, taxonomies, and more. Due to its architecture, each language can be on its own subdomain, directory, or even a custom domain name.