Comparing Polyglot and Smartling for developer teams. See how a CLI-first tool compares to an enterprise translation management system with custom pricing.
Smartling is an enterprise translation management system used by companies like British Airways, Pinterest, and Shopify. It's built for large organizations with dedicated localization teams, complex workflows, and significant translation budgets. Polyglot is a CLI-first tool built for developers at small teams who want to handle i18n without an enterprise platform.
The core difference: Smartling is enterprise software with custom pricing. Polyglot is a developer tool you can start using for free.
| Feature | Polyglot | Smartling |
|---|---|---|
| Hardcoded-string detection (AST-based) | ✓Yes | ✕No |
| AI/LLM translation | ✓Yes, built-in | ✓Yes (Smartling Neural MT) |
| Output formats | JSON, YAML, ARB, iOS .strings, Android XML | Many |
| Local preview | ✓Yes (polyglot preview) | ✓Yes (context capture) |
| IDE integration | VS Code extension (inline diagnostics) | Editor plugins |
| CI/CD integration | ✓Yes (GitHub Action) | ✓Yes |
| CLI support | Primary interface | Available |
| Web dashboard | ✓Yes (translation review) | Full-featured |
| Free tier | Free local scanning, 500 source strings (lifetime) | No (free trial available) |
| Starting price | $0 | Custom (not published) |
| Self-serve signup | ✓Yes | Free trial; plans are custom-quoted |
| Translation memory | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
| Glossary support | ✓Yes | ✓Yes |
| Vendor management | ✕No | ✓Yes |
| Context capture | Local preview | Visual context in dashboard |
| Content connectors | GitHub Action | 50+ CMS/code connectors |
Smartling is one of the best enterprise TMS platforms for a reason:
Smartling's NMT engine is trained on customer data and produces high-quality translations tuned to each customer's domain. For enterprises with large translation volumes, this is a genuine quality advantage over generic MT.
Smartling can capture screenshots and visual context automatically, showing translators exactly where strings appear in the UI. This meaningfully improves translation quality for complex applications.
Smartling's automation engine handles complex multi-step translation workflows — routing strings to the right translators, applying quality checks, managing review cycles, and enforcing approval chains. For teams with 10+ translators, this is essential.
50+ integrations with CMS platforms, code repositories, marketing tools, and design tools. Smartling can pull content from almost any source system.
Smartling handles large translation volumes for enterprise customers. If you're translating at massive scale, Smartling's infrastructure is purpose-built for it.
Polyglot parses your source code with tree-sitter and reports untranslated strings. 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. Smartling manages strings from connected sources but doesn't scan your code for hardcoded strings you haven't extracted yet. A VS Code extension flags those strings inline in the editor.
You can install Polyglot and scan your codebase in minutes, with published prices. Smartling offers a free trial, but its plans are custom-quoted — its plans page asks you to book a meeting.
Polyglot's fine-tuned engine scored 4.96/5 across 49 languages on our June 2026 pipeline, AI-judged — reproducible benchmark.
Polyglot is $0 for local scanning and $49/month ($39/month billed annually) for Pro. Smartling doesn't publish subscription pricing.
Polyglot runs locally and in your CI pipeline and outputs version-controlled files for web and mobile catalogs — JSON, YAML, ARB, iOS .strings, and Android XML. Smartling is primarily a dashboard with a CLI as a secondary interface.
| Polyglot Free | Polyglot Pro | Smartling | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $49/mo ($39 annual) | Custom (not published) |
| String detection | Unlimited (local) | Unlimited (local) | N/A |
| Signup process | Instant | Self-serve | Free trial; plans quoted after a meeting |
| Contract | None | Monthly or annual | Custom |
| Minimum commitment | None | None | Custom |
Smartling doesn't publish subscription prices. Its plans page lists Core and Enterprise plans and asks you to book a meeting; translation services are priced per word on top. For a 3-person startup that wants to try a tool today, that process can be slower than you'd like.
Competitor pricing checked September 22, 2026.
Im Terminal starten
Installieren Sie die CLI, führen Sie einen Scan durch und sehen Sie genau, was Ihnen fehlt. Kostenlos, kein Konto erforderlich.