Comparing Polyglot and Localizely on price, features, and developer experience. See how a CLI-first tool compares to a budget-friendly TMS dashboard.
Localizely is a budget-friendly translation management system that competes primarily on price — paid plans start at $16/month billed annually. Polyglot takes a different approach: it's a CLI-first tool that finds hardcoded strings in your source code, translates with LLMs, and previews locally, starting at $0.
Both tools appeal to cost-conscious teams, but they solve different problems.
| Feature | Polyglot | Localizely |
|---|---|---|
| Hardcoded-string detection (AST-based) | ✓Yes | ✕No |
| AI/LLM translation | ✓Yes, built-in | ✓Yes (AI translation + MT) |
| Local preview | ✓Yes (polyglot preview) | ✕No |
| CI/CD integration | ✓Yes (GitHub Action) | ✓Yes (API/CLI) |
| CLI support | Primary interface | Available |
| Web dashboard | ✓Yes (translation review) | ✓Yes |
| Free tier | Free local scanning, 500 source strings (lifetime) | ✓Yes (250 string keys) |
| Starting price | $0 | $16/mo (billed annually) |
| Translation memory | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
| Glossary support | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
| Over-the-air delivery | ✕No | ✓Yes |
| Branching | ✕No | ✓Yes |
| Editor integration | VS Code extension (inline diagnostics) | ✕No |
| File format support | JSON, YAML, ARB, iOS .strings, Android XML | 20+ formats |
At $16/month billed annually, Localizely is one of the cheapest dashboard TMS platforms available. For teams that need a dashboard but can't justify $50+/month, Localizely fills a real gap.
Localizely supports OTA translation updates for mobile apps, which is valuable for teams that need to push translation changes without app store releases.
Localizely supports branches that mirror your git workflow, similar to Lokalise but at a fraction of the price.
Localizely handles 20+ file formats including JSON, YAML, XLIFF, Android XML, iOS .strings, and more.
Built-in quality assurance checks catch common translation issues like missing placeholders, incorrect number formatting, and character limit violations.
Polyglot finds hardcoded strings in your source code with tree-sitter AST parsing. Detection covers Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit, Vue, Angular, React Native and Flutter; runtime support varies by setup, and Next.js App Router with next-intl is the best-tested path. Localizely manages strings that are already in translation files, so extraction is up to you.
Polyglot's local scanner is free. You can audit every project in your organization without spending anything. Localizely's free tier is limited to 250 string keys.
Polyglot's VS Code extension flags untranslated strings inline as you write code — scan-on-save, a findings sidebar, and wrap actions you review before applying — surfacing gaps in the editor instead of leaving extraction to a manual pass.
Polyglot translates with a fine-tuned LLM, sending component name, surrounding UI, and glossary terms alongside each string. It scored 4.96/5 across 49 languages on our June 2026 pipeline, AI-judged — reproducible benchmark.
polyglot preview shows translations in your actual app. Localizely's preview is in the dashboard, not in your running application.
Both tools compete on affordability, but in different ways:
| Polyglot Free | Polyglot Pro | Localizely Free | Localizely paid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $49/mo ($39 annual) | $0 | From $16/mo (billed annually) |
| What you get | Free local scanning | Detection + translation + preview | 250 string keys | Dashboard + TM + OTA |
| String detection | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Languages | 2 | 5 | — | — |
| Projects | 1 | 3 | — | — |
| Translation | 500 source strings (lifetime) | 10,000 source strings (lifetime) | AI/MT (limited) | AI/MT included |
Localizely is cheaper as a dashboard ($16/month billed annually vs $49/month for Polyglot Pro). They cover different work: Polyglot's free scanner and wrapping help you find and extract hardcoded strings, which Localizely doesn't do. If your strings are already extracted, Localizely is the cheaper option.
Competitor pricing checked September 22, 2026.
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