LibreTranslate review: unlimited translation, $14 a month

Is LibreTranslate free?

The LibreTranslate software is free to run on your own server, but the hosted API is paid: three plans with unlimited translations that differ only in how many calls you can make per minute. Each call takes up to 2,000 characters, so longer text has to be split.

There is no free trial and no free low-volume key, but there is a seven-day money-back guarantee and you can cancel at any time. The public demo now requires a key too. Higher limits are available on request.

How good is LibreTranslate?

LibreTranslate runs on Argos Translate models, and its users rate their quality as uneven. In an August 2024 issue on the project’s GitHub, one user called German output poor and the Azerbaijani model “pretty much useless”. In January 2025 another rated Norwegian to English “quite poor”. By late 2025 the maintainer said large language model approaches were being tested in a separate project, LTEngine.

The hosted service covers 51 languages, with Brazilian Portuguese and traditional Chinese but a single Spanish and nothing specific to India beyond Hindi, Bengali and Urdu. Test fifty of your own titles on a free local install before you subscribe.

Translating a video catalog with LibreTranslate

A tube with 10,000 videos whose title and description run to 250 characters sends 2.5 million characters per language. In 2,000-character calls that is 1,250 requests, about three and a half hours at the Starter sustained rate. The same volume costs $37.50 per language on Amazon Translate, against $14 for the whole month here.

The web translator also takes files, including .srt subtitles, HTML, Word documents and PDFs.

LibreTranslate does not keep your text

The hosted service neither stores nor logs translated text. It keeps IP addresses and API keys for two days to fight abuse, and payments go through Stripe. No terms of service are published.

No company is named. The privacy policy gives a mailing address in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the lead developer signs as Piero.

Self-hosting LibreTranslate

The software is free under the AGPLv3. If you modify it and offer it to users over a network, you must publish your changes, which does not affect a site using it as is. The GitHub repository has close to 17,000 stars, version 1.9.6 shipped in May 2026 and commits landed in late September 2026.

LibreTranslate itself warns that a server matching its hosted speed may cost more than a key. Self-hosting does give you model choice and keeps every string on your hardware.

LibreTranslate strengths and limitations