Weglot alternatives: your own CMS or another translation tool, compared fairly

For most companies, the best Weglot alternative is not another translation tool but the multilingual setup of the CMS they already have: WPML, Polylang or TranslatePress on WordPress, Webflow Localization, or the built-in languages of Drupal and Joomla. Your translations then live in your own database, you control the URLs yourself and you pay a licence instead of a subscription that grows with every word. Other SaaS layers such as GTranslate, ConveyThis or Linguise work differently from Weglot technically, but they still leave your translations with a vendor. In this article we compare both families on five criteria: ownership, URLs, SEO control, speed and price model. And we also say honestly when Weglot is still the right choice.

If you do not know Weglot well yet, read our Weglot review first. If you want to know straight away what switching involves, the full plan is in our guide on how to leave a translation tool without losing SEO.

How should you compare Weglot alternatives?

Most “best Weglot alternatives” lists are written by a Weglot competitor and end with their own product. We do not sell translation software, so we compare on the questions that make the difference in practice:

1. Ownership. Where do your translations live? In your CMS database, or on the vendor’s servers?
2. URLs. Does each language get its own URL (/fr/, /en/), and can you translate the slugs yourself?
3. SEO control. Do you manage titles, meta descriptions, hreflang and canonicals per language yourself, or does the tool do it for you and ask you to trust it?
4. Speed. Is the translated page served by your own site, or does an extra layer sit in between (proxy or JavaScript)?
5. Price model. Do you pay per word and per language, per site, or per language version? And what happens when you stop paying?

Weglot alternatives at a glance

Sources: the pricing pages of WPML, Polylang, TranslatePress, Webflow, GTranslate, ConveyThis and Linguise, and the documentation of Drupal and Joomla, all checked on 7 October 2026.

Alternative 1: the multilingual setup of your own CMS

This is the route we end up on most often in practice, because it solves Weglot’s core problem: your translations become yours. According to Weglot’s features page, translations there are “stored by Weglot, accessible through your Weglot Dashboard, and not in your CMS”. With a CMS-native solution it is the other way round.

WordPress: WPML, Polylang or TranslatePress

On WordPress there are three common plugins, and they differ more than their marketing suggests:

• WPML creates a separate version of your pages and posts for each language and, according to its documentation on URL formats, supports languages in directories (/fr/), on their own domain or subdomain, or as a parameter. The plans from Multilingual CMS upwards include string translation, page builder support and WooCommerce. If you stop renewing, WPML says your site keeps working with all its translations, just without updates.
• Polylang also works with separate translated posts per language. The base plugin is free on wordpress.org; Polylang Pro adds, among other things, translated slugs and XLIFF import and export. According to Polylang’s documentation on URLs, you choose between a directory, a subdomain or a separate domain per language, and you can hide the language code of your main language, which protects existing URLs.
• TranslatePress translates the page as it is displayed and stores the translations in your WordPress database. You edit them visually on the page itself, which comes close to the way Weglot works. According to TranslatePress’s pricing page, your translations keep working when your licence expires.

Which plugin fits depends on your page builder, the number of languages and whether you run a shop. We work that out in our comparison Weglot vs WPML, TranslatePress and Polylang, including the plan for switching on WordPress without losing rankings.

Webflow Localization

Webflow has multilingual support built in as an add-on. According to Webflow’s pricing page, the Essential plan lets you add up to 3 locales and Advanced up to 10, with a monthly volume of AI translation per locale. Advanced adds, among other things, translated URL slugs, localised images and automatic routing per language. Your translations then live in your Webflow project, not with a third party. One caveat: the locales are a subscription, so here too you pay for as long as you use them.

Drupal and Joomla

Drupal and Joomla have multilingual support in their core. According to the Drupal documentation, Drupal provides four core modules (Language, Interface Translation, Content Translation and Configuration Translation) instead of a set of separate extensions. Joomla links translations through the Language Filter plugin and the Multilingual Associations component, as described in the Joomla manual. If you use a translation tool on either platform, you are paying for something the CMS can already do.

Alternative 2: another SaaS translation layer

GTranslate, ConveyThis and Linguise are Weglot’s best-known competitors. Broadly, they work the same way: a layer on top of your site that translates and serves the translated versions.

• GTranslate has a free widget that, according to its own plan comparison, shows machine translation without search engine indexing, without translated URLs and without hosting per language. Those features are in the paid plans; translated URLs and “language hosting” only in the highest ones. For SEO, the free version is therefore not a real language version.
• ConveyThis charges, according to its pricing page, plans that combine a number of words and languages, much like Weglot.
• Linguise states literally on its pricing page that the word limit equals the number of words on your pages multiplied by the number of languages, with unlimited languages per plan.

The honest verdict: such a switch can turn out cheaper or suit your platform better, but you trade one vendor for another. Your translations still live outside your CMS, and if you want to move again later, the same exercise starts over. For anyone who wants to get away from that dependency, another SaaS layer is not a solution.

Speed: what really changes?

With a SaaS layer there is a step between your site and the visitor: a proxy that delivers the translated page, or JavaScript that replaces the text after loading. How much difference that makes in your case depends on your hosting and setup, so measure it instead of assuming it. With a CMS-native solution the translated page comes straight from your own site, just like your main language, and your caching applies to every language. There is one exception you need to know: a widget that only translates in the browser (such as the free GTranslate version) produces pages that search engines do not index as separate language versions. Google recommends separate URLs per language version, linked with hreflang.

When is Weglot still the right choice?

We are not against Weglot. It is a solid product, and in these situations we would not advise you to switch:

• A small site with one or two extra languages, where the smallest paid plan is enough and the cost of a switch does not outweigh a few years of subscription.
• A quick test in a new market. Weglot is running within an afternoon; if the language brings nothing, you switch it off again.
• A platform without multilingual support of its own, or a custom application where building multilingual support would be a large development project.
• A team without technical capacity that prefers to hand the translations over to a tool completely.

What changes is the moment your site grows: more pages, more languages, translated URLs that only come with the higher plans and an export you only get in the more expensive plans. That is where the maths tips, and we work it out in what Weglot really costs over three years.

How do you choose, and how do you switch?

A simple rule of thumb from our projects:

1. Does your CMS have a native solution? Then start there. On WordPress you choose between WPML, Polylang and TranslatePress; on Webflow it is Localization; on Drupal and Joomla it is the core.
2. Do you want to own your translations? Then every SaaS layer is out, including the alternatives to Weglot.
3. Keep your URLs. A switch is only safe if every translated URL either stays in place or redirects with a 301 to the new URL. Then check your hreflang with our hreflang checker, which also shows which translation tool or plugin is active.
4. Export before you cancel. How to get your translations out of Weglot and what happens when you stop your subscription is explained in our guide on exporting your Weglot translations.

Would you rather not do the switch yourself? With our translation tool migration we move every language version into the multilingual setup of your CMS, with the same URLs or a complete redirect plan, and hreflang and canonicals checked before and after the switch.

Frequently asked questions about Weglot alternatives

From Weglot to your own CMS

Torn between another translation tool and the multilingual setup of your own CMS? Read first how to leave a translation tool without losing SEO, or let us take a look with you. We map your language versions, URLs and hreflang, and tell you honestly whether a switch is worth it for your site.

See the translation tool migration