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Head to head · Translate text · October 2026 research run

LibreTranslate vs Lingo.dev

Lingo.dev scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. LibreTranslate leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing. Both do translate text.

LibreTranslateLibreTranslate · HTTP API D49.8/100#602 of 722 Lingo.devReplexica, Inc. · HTTP API B62.3/100#341 of 722

Which one, for what

LibreTranslate D

Good for Operators who must keep text on their own servers or want a fixed cost, and for light hosted use.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 65 against 54
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

No status page, SLA or terms of service for the hosted API

Lingo.dev B

Good for Product teams that translate interface strings and content into many locales and want glossary, tone and rule control held in one place, driven from code, CI or a coding assistant.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 71 against 35
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 65
  • Security & auth, 62 against 45
  • Maintenance & community, 87 against 40
  • Transparency & trust, 71 against 60

Watch for

No public OpenAPI file was found, llms.txt holds one title line and docs pages have no Markdown version

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLibreTranslateLingo.devEdge
Reliability16%203571Lingo.dev +36
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26554LibreTranslate +11
Agent ergonomics13%16.26575Lingo.dev +10
Security & auth14%17.54562Lingo.dev +17
Payments & pricing10%12.54020LibreTranslate +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.84087Lingo.dev +47
Transparency & trust7%8.86071Lingo.dev +11
Negative events≤1500
Total49.8 · D62.3 · B

Facts side by side

FactLibreTranslateLingo.dev
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLibreTranslateReplexica, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://libretranslate.comhttps://mcp.lingo.dev/account
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPaidPay per use
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0Proprietary hosted service under Lingo.dev's terms of service. The lingodotdev/lingo.dev repository (legacy CLI, JavaScript SDK, compiler) and the Python SDK are Apache-2.0. The @lingo.dev/cli package states no licence on npm
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
MCP registrynot listeddev.lingo/main
Last release2026-05-262026-10-07
Terms last updatedno document linked2026-05-07
Privacy policy last updated2025-09-232026-05-07
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity17k stars, 4.5k PyPI/wk5.4k stars, 92k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (2)none

Verdicts

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.

Lingo.dev

Lingo.dev suits teams that want glossary and tone control on every translation call, with a published fee of $2 per million output tokens and model costs passed through. It has no public OpenAPI file, its llms.txt is one line, and scoped keys, roles and audit logs are limited to the Enterprise plan.

Before you call either

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

Lingo.dev

  1. Send X-API-Key to https://api.lingo.dev and keep the key server-side. On non-Enterprise plans a personal key reaches every engine its creator can
  2. Use POST /process/localize for one language pair and POST /jobs/localization with an idempotencyKey for several. Pipeline stages run on async jobs only
  3. Treat 402 (credit limit) and 429 (daily token quota) as limits to report, not to retry. Retry 500 with backoff
  4. Read usage.cost on each sync response to track spend. Sandbox stops at 100,000 tokens a day
  5. Connect MCP clients to https://mcp.lingo.dev/account. Its tools can create and revoke API keys and invite members, so ask before those calls

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, LibreTranslate or Lingo.dev?

Lingo.dev scores 62.3 (B) on agent readiness against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. LibreTranslate leads on schema & documentation and payments & pricing.

Do LibreTranslate and Lingo.dev need an API key?

LibreTranslate needs an API key. Lingo.dev takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call LibreTranslate and Lingo.dev without installing anything?

Yes. LibreTranslate has a hosted endpoint at https://libretranslate.com and Lingo.dev at https://mcp.lingo.dev/account.

Are LibreTranslate and Lingo.dev open source?

LibreTranslate is open source (AGPL-3.0). No open-source release is listed for Lingo.dev.

Other comparisons with LibreTranslate or Lingo.dev

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