About WPML
WPML is a commercial plugin that turns a WordPress site into a multilingual one. It is described as suitable for both large corporate sites and simple blogs, and it runs inside your own WordPress installation rather than as a separate hosted service.
The product is organized as a core plugin with add-ons, including WooCommerce Multilingual for translating online stores and AI Automatic Translation for machine-generated drafts. The vendor's site has extensive documentation, developer documentation, comparisons with other translation plugins, lists of recommended themes, plugins and WooCommerce extensions, and a showcase of sites built with it.
WPML is sold under a paid license with a pricing page and a refund policy, and the site is available in many languages. It is aimed at site owners, agencies and developers who need control over how content is translated in WordPress.
Key features
- Multilingual content in WordPress
- WooCommerce Multilingual add-on
- AI automatic translation
- Add-on plugins for extra functions
- Compatibility with many themes and plugins
- Developer documentation and APIs
Good fit for
- →Agencies building multilingual WordPress sites for clients
- →WooCommerce stores selling in several languages
- Tags
- wordpress
- multilingual
- translation-plugin
- woocommerce
- localization
- cms
- plugin
WPML: questions and answers
- What is WPML used for?
- WPML is a WordPress plugin for building multilingual sites, with add-ons for WooCommerce and AI-assisted automatic translation. It is a good fit for agencies building multilingual WordPress sites for clients and WooCommerce stores selling in several languages.
- How much does WPML cost?
- WPML is a paid product with no free plan.
- Is WPML open source?
- No. WPML is proprietary (closed-source) software. In the Localization category, open-source options include Intlayer, LibreTranslate and Weblate.
- Can I self-host WPML?
- Yes. Although WPML is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers.
- What are some alternatives to WPML?
- WPML competes with Polylang, TranslatePress and Weglot.
Open-source alternatives to WPML
See all
Intlayer
Localization
Per-component Internationalisation solution for JS application. Type-Safe. Translate with
Apache-2.0vs Locize★ 844
LibreTranslate
Localization
Free and Open Source Machine Translation API. Self-hosted, offline capable and easy to set
AGPL-3.0vs Google Translate★ 17k
Weblate
Localization
Web based localization tool with tight version control integration.
GPL-3.0vs Crowdin★ 6.1k
Lingo.dev
Localization
Open-source localization engineering tools. Connects to Lingo.dev localization engineering
Apache-2.0vs Lokalise★ 5.4k
Tolgee
Localization
Developer & translator friendly web-based localization platform
OSSvs Crowdin★ 4.1k
Pontoon
Localization
Mozilla's Localization Platform
BSD-3-Clausevs Transifex★ 1.7k
SaaS alternatives to WPML
See all
Polylang
Localization
WordPress multilingual plugin with a free core and paid add-ons
SaaS
TranslatePress
Localization
WordPress translation plugin with a visual front-end editor
SaaS
Weglot
Localization
Website translation plugin that serves multilingual versions of a site
SaaS
GTranslate
Localization
Website translation widget and plugin for WordPress and other CMSs
SaaS
ConveyThis
Localization
Website translation plugin with machine translation and manual editing
SaaS
Langify
Localization
Shopify app for translating online stores
SaaS

