# Lara Translate API vs LibreTranslate

> Lara Translate API has a score of 61.7 (C) against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D). Both do translate text. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 43 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

Lara Translate API has a score of 61.7 (C) against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D). Both do translate text. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 43 points.

- Lara Translate API: grade C, 61.7/100, rank #225 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lara-translate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lara-translate.json
- LibreTranslate: grade D, 49.8/100, rank #367 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/libretranslate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/libretranslate.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Lara Translate API for reliability (+35), schema & documentation (+9), agent ergonomics (+12), maintenance & community (+43).

Pick LibreTranslate for security & auth (+15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lara Translate API | LibreTranslate | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 35 | Lara Translate API +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 65 | Lara Translate API +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 65 | Lara Translate API +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 45 | LibreTranslate +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 40 | Lara Translate API +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 61 | Lara Translate API +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.7 · C** | **49.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lara Translate API | LibreTranslate |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Translated | LibreTranslate |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp-v2.laratranslate.com/v1` | `https://libretranslate.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (MCP server and SDKs) | AGPL-3.0 |
| Tools exposed | 22 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-05-26 |
| Popularity | 97 stars, 29k npm/wk, 1.7k PyPI/wk | 17k stars, 4.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Lara Translate API.** Glossaries, translation memories, styles and instructions on every translate call. Texts may be used for model improvement unless a request sets `noTrace`.

**LibreTranslate.** Open source under AGPL-3.0, self-hosted with no text leaving your network. No status page, SLA or terms of service for the hosted API.

## Before you call either

### Lara Translate API

1. Set `noTrace` on every request that carries private text, since storage for model improvement is the default
2. Leave `reasoning` off unless the text needs it. It moves the call to Lara Think at $2,499 per million characters
3. Resolve glossary and memory names to `gls_*` and `mem_*` IDs with the list tools before translating
4. Send one target language per translate call
5. Merge short documents, since each file bills at least 20,000 characters

### LibreTranslate

1. Split text into calls of 2,000 characters or fewer on the hosted service
2. Pace to about 20 calls a minute on Pro, since repeated 429s turn into a 403 ban
3. Pass `source=auto` to detect and translate in one call
4. Set `format=html` for markup
5. Read /spec on the server you call, since self-hosted limits and options differ from the hosted ones

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