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Head to head · Translate text · October 2026 research run

Crowdin vs Lokalise

Lokalise scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Crowdin's 69.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do translate text.

CrowdinCrowdin OÜ · HTTP API B69.6/100#153 of 722 LokaliseLokalise, Inc. · HTTP API BB71.3/100#115 of 722

Which one, for what

Crowdin B

Good for Teams that keep product strings and files in Crowdin and want an agent to upload sources, check progress, apply pre-translation, manage glossaries and pull builds.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

The terms forbid accessing the service to monitor availability, performance or functionality, or for benchmarking, without Crowdin's prior written consent

Lokalise BB

Good for Agents that manage localisation work, such as adding keys, uploading and exporting string files, keeping a glossary and starting AI or machine translation tasks for a team that already uses Lokalise.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 84 against 78
  • Security & auth, 73 against 68

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The Master Service Agreement forbids using the service for benchmarking or competitive analysis

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrowdinLokaliseEdge
Reliability16%207884Lokalise +6
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28076Crowdin +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.26969even
Security & auth14%17.56873Lokalise +5
Payments & pricing10%12.53030even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88284Lokalise +2
Transparency & trust7%8.87981Lokalise +2
Negative events≤1500
Total69.6 · B71.3 · BB

Facts side by side

FactCrowdinLokalise
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorCrowdin OÜLokalise, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.crowdin.com/api/v2https://api.lokalise.com/api2
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Crowdin's terms. The CLI and the official API clients are MITProprietary service under the Lokalise Master Service Agreement. The CLI and the Node SDK on GitHub are BSD 3-Clause
Read-only variant documentedyesyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-302026-10-05
Terms last updated2026-09-242025-11-01
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-242026-03-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity320 stars, 264k npm/wk, 14k PyPI/wk124 stars, 338k npm/wk, 39k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

Crowdin

The REST API has a public OpenAPI document with 374 operations, and tokens can be limited by scope, access level and project. Translation runs inside Crowdin projects and connected engines, so it is not a stateless per-character translation API. No Retry-After guidance, idempotency keys or SLA were found in the reviewed documentation.

Lokalise

The REST API has public OpenAPI files, Markdown docs, published rate limits, read-only tokens, scoped OAuth and an audit log endpoint. Access needs a paid plan after a 14-day trial, a person signs up in a browser, and the Master Service Agreement forbids benchmarking. No idempotency keys or deprecation policy were found in the reviewed documentation.

Before you call either

Crowdin

  1. Send Authorization: Bearer <token> to https://api.crowdin.com/api/v2. Crowdin Enterprise uses https://<organization_domain>.api.crowdin.com/api/v2
  2. Use the MCP V2 endpoint https://mcp.crowdin.com/v2/mcp and set crowdin-tool-sets, because the server loads all 33 tool sets by default
  3. Set crowdin-read-only: true on the MCP connection for exploration. It exposes only list and get tools
  4. Keep to 20 concurrent requests an account across all tokens, and add your own backoff on 429
  5. Upload a file to /storages first, then pass the storageId to the add-file call. Builds, exports and reports are asynchronous and need a status poll
  6. /mts/{mtId}/translations takes at most 100 strings a call and needs the mt scope and a configured engine

Lokalise

  1. Send the token in the X-Api-Token header to https://api.lokalise.com/api2. OAuth access tokens go in Authorization: Bearer and expire after about 60 minutes.
  2. Stay under 6 requests a second per token and 10 concurrent requests per project. On 429, back off exponentially and read X-RateLimit-Reset.
  3. Use a read-only token for reads. A read/write token can call PUT /projects/{project_id}/empty, which deletes every key and translation.
  4. Use pagination=cursor on /keys and /translations, with limit at most 500 on keys, and follow X-Pagination-Next-Cursor.
  5. Projects above 10,000 key-language pairs need /files/async-download. Poll /processes/{process_id} for the bundle URL, and do the same after /files/upload.

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crowdin or Lokalise?

Lokalise scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Crowdin's 69.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

Do Crowdin and Lokalise need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Crowdin and Lokalise without installing anything?

Yes. Crowdin has a hosted endpoint at https://api.crowdin.com/api/v2 and Lokalise at https://api.lokalise.com/api2.

Other comparisons with Crowdin or Lokalise

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