Categories: Marketing & EcommerceWpml

WPML: The WordPress Translator and its Alternatives

In this post we will get into the importance of WPML as the Plugin of choice as a WordPress translator, something that will fascinate you if you’re planning to internationalise your content. Keep reading if you want to know more!

What is WPML?

If you regularly use WordPress and intend to translate your website into another language, you will have encountered the inconvenient fact that this CMS does not inherently include the multilingual functionality, therefore you need to resort to a plug-in. This is where WPML comes into play.

WPML (WordPress Multilingual) is the most well-known and complete plug-in when it comes to managing translations on WordPress, taking into account its full compatibility with Woocommerce and its great support service.

It’s a plug-in that allows you to professionally carry out the much needed positioning and translation of WordPress websites. We’re talking about a plug-in that uses over 400,000 commercial websites, and that many users and web developers can’t be wrong.

This plug-in was developed in 2007 by OnTheGoSystems and its first version was published for free, though things have changed over time.

Nowadays, it has become a Premium plug-in with quite a reasonable cost, especially taking into account that it has significantly improved its technical support, adding various advantages to any WordPress site.

Why WPML? Are there other options?

Of course, WPML is not the only option if you want to translate your website into other languages; in this WPML guide, we will mention two of the strongest alternatives to this powerful plug-in: qTranslateX and Polylang.

qTranslateX

Based on the now extinct qTranslate, this plug-in became the free WordPress translation plug-in most used by users.

Among its advantages, we can mention that it’s free, it also allows you to change language through a very simple tab system and it doesn’t create additional tables in the database; something that’s much appreciated.

On the other hand, it has many disadvantages. Some of the WordPress templates do not function correctly when they interact with this plug-in and it also has very limited support. With regard to updates, these don’t work well either, as it may take time to find one that’s compatible with the new version of CMS. Last but certainly not least, translating certain elements may become quite a complicated task (contact forms, sliders…).

Polylang

This is a translation plug-in that’s easy to use, lightweight and has more than acceptable support. Nowadays it has stolen the crown from qTranslateX as the most popular free WordPress translation plug-in, with very good reviews from its users.

It has the great advantage of being free and it also doesn’t consume many resources. On the other hand, we can’t forget that there are issues with it not working properly and it’s a plug-in developed by just one person, which makes it easy for it to lose compatibility with WordPress at any time.

That said, if you don’t want to use a paid plug-in, you have these and other free alternatives for translating your website. However, you shouldn’t overlook the fact that you will lose functions and characteristics compared to WPML.

Now, WPML

The main advantages offered to us by WPML are as follows:

SEO. This allows you to optimise your website independently, i.e., language to language. It’s also compatible with the main WordPress SEO plug-ins.
Reliability. The work behind it’s obviously done by professionals, as it has constant collaborations with other leading plug-ins in order to ensure compatibility and provide updates with very good times.
Trial period. It has a 30-day trial period, during which your money is refunded if you aren’t satisfied with the plug-in, no questions asked!
Installation and set-up. This entire process is very simple, quick and secure, and you don’t need to have programming knowledge.
lectronic commerce. It’s completely compatible with WooCommerce.
Use. With a basic set-up, you can translate an entire website straight away and it’s incredibly simple.

However, as with every other plug-in, it also has its disadvantages:

Price. Although it was originally a free plug-in, we must now choose a payment method. Despite this small drawback, the price is affordable, and we must bear in mind that, with a single payment, we can use WPML on any WordPress websites that we have. We will delve deeper into this subject in the next point.
Additional tables. Unlike other plug-ins, WPML creates additional tables in the database, which may cause the backend to be slower at times, though this will never affect the frontend.