LibreTranslate
Self-hosted, open-source translation API that keeps your data private
About
LibreTranslate is a free and open-source machine translation API powered by the Argos Translate library, designed to run on your own infrastructure. Because translation happens locally, no text ever leaves your servers, which suits healthcare, legal, and government use cases with strict data rules. It exposes a simple REST API with /translate and /detect endpoints, a built-in web UI, and offline capability after models are downloaded.
Translation quality trails the big commercial engines, and loading many language models needs real RAM.
What it can do
- REST translation API (/translate, /detect)
- Self-hosted and offline-capable
- 100+ supported languages
- File translation (PDF, DOCX, PPTX)
- API-key auth and rate limiting
Setup
- Pull the Docker image: docker pull libretranslate/libretranslate.
- Run it with your language selection: docker run -p 5000:5000 libretranslate/libretranslate.
- Optionally set LT_API_KEYS and LT_LOAD_ONLY to harden access and control memory.
- Call the REST API from your app at http://localhost:5000/translate.
- Download extra language models as needed.
Prerequisites
Docker (or Python 3.11); 2-4 GB RAM for a handful of languages.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: AGPL-3.0 open source; ~14.2k GitHub stars (Railway deployment page, 2026); REST API (/translate, /detect), self-hosted Docker, offline-capable - confirmed across sources; Powered by Argos Translate (open source); quality below commercial engines - stated tradeoff; Public libretranslate.com instance requires API key (bot-abuse notice, 2026). License: AGPL-3.0 open source.
★ 14,200 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 7.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 9.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 6.0/10
- · AGPL-3.0 open source; ~14.2k GitHub stars (Railway deployment page, 2026)
- · REST API (/translate, /detect), self-hosted Docker, offline-capable - confirmed across sources
- · Powered by Argos Translate (open source); quality below commercial engines - stated tradeoff
- · Public libretranslate.com instance requires API key (bot-abuse notice, 2026)
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.