Notes 
100% Self-Hosted. No Limits. No Ties to Proprietary Services.
Reviewed by Gabriel Bachmann
LibreTranslate
libretranslate.com 4.8 (6)
Rate LibreTranslate: No account needed
Threat level
Hardened
A hardened pick. Worth the effort once you have chosen to shrink your footprint on purpose. Enough for most people. Threat levels
Our take
The only fully self-hosted, machine-learning translator in this group, which means with your own instance no text ever touches a proprietary service, a real privacy win. The honest trade is quality: its open models don’t match DeepL or Google on nuance, especially for less common languages. Pick LibreTranslate when independence and not leaking text to a third party outrank polish, and you can run the server. If you need the most accurate translation and privacy is secondary, this is not the one.
GitHub at a glance
LibreTranslate/LibreTranslate AGPL-3.0 apimachinetranslatetranslationtranslator
Stars
17,270
+61 this week
Forks
1,794
109 watching
Last commit
9d ago
healthy
Latest release
v1.9.6
5mo ago, 53 total
Star history
Issues
78% closed
132
open
479
closed
+7 / -2
opened / closed, last 4 weeks
Opened vs closed, last 12 weeks
Commits, last 26 weeks
34 commits, active 18 of 26 weeks
242 contributors since Dec 2020
Languages
- Python 74.3%
- HTML 10.9%
- CSS 5.7%
- Other 9.1%
Updated daily from the GitHub API. Star tracking since Jun 10, 2026.
Website at a glance
libretranslate.com
F score 10
Weak website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested 3d ago
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
LibreTranslate alternatives
Lingva Translate Retrieves translations without using any Google-related service, preventing them from tracking.
LanguageTool Great alternative to Grammarly. Plugins and apps available for: Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari, Opera, iOS, macOS, Windows, Google Docs, Microsoft Office, LibreOffice,…
DeepL Translate Warning: The free version of DeepL does not respect your privacy, only the paid pro version. Source: Privacy Policy. The texts of free users are used to train and improve the…
TranslateLocally Offline neural machine translation that runs entirely on your device, with a desktop app and browser extension.
Linguist Linguist is not just another browser extension. It's a full-featured translation system that respects your privacy. Translate offline on your device, use any translation…
SimplyTranslate Mobile Clearweb, Onion, I2P and Lokinet instances are also available for SimplyTranslate.
LibreTranslate license, in plain English
AGPL-3.0 Strong copyleft · network
Free to use, even commercially. Changes must be published under the same license, and running a modified version as a network service counts as distributing it.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Patent use
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Network use is distribution
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: The network clause is the point. Anyone who runs a modified version as a hosted service has to publish those changes, so the code handling your data stays inspectable. This is why privacy-first projects reach for AGPL.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.