# LibreTranslate vs Phrase

> Phrase scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. LibreTranslate leads on payments & pricing. Both do translate text. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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: 2026-10-08

Phrase scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. LibreTranslate leads on payments & pricing. Both do translate text.

- LibreTranslate: grade D, 49.8/100, rank #602 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/libretranslate.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/libretranslate.json
- Phrase: grade B, 64.2/100, rank #285 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/phrase.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/phrase.json

## 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:
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30

Also in its favour:
- Open source

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

### Phrase (B)

Good for: Teams that keep translation projects, term bases and translation memories in Phrase and want an agent to run them, or to translate through engines chosen per language pair.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 65
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 65
- Security & auth, 58 against 45
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: status.phrase.com lists 14 incidents between 10 July and 8 October 2026, two marked critical and ten major, most confined to one component


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LibreTranslate | Phrase | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 55 | Phrase +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 87 | Phrase +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 70 | Phrase +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 58 | Phrase +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | LibreTranslate +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 40 | 83 | Phrase +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 74 | Phrase +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **49.8 · D** | **64.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LibreTranslate | Phrase |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | LibreTranslate | Phrase a.s. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://libretranslate.com` | `https://mcp.eu.phrase.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary service under the Phrase Terms of Service. The CLI, the Strings API clients and the deprecated local MCP server on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.phrase/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-05-26 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-23 | 2026-10-06 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 17k stars, 4.5k PyPI/wk | 49 stars, 40k npm/wk, 14k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (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.

**Phrase.** Nine APIs with public OpenAPI specs, Markdown docs and a hosted MCP server that signs in with OAuth and separates view, create and delete consents. The status page lists 14 incidents in 90 days, 12 marked major or critical. Capacity top-up prices aren't public, and the terms permit training some models on customer content and prohibit benchmarking.

## 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

### Phrase

1. Exchange a Phrase Platform API token at `https://eu.phrase.com/idm/oauth/token` (or `us.phrase.com`) for a Bearer JWT, which lasts about four hours, and refresh it before it expires
2. Send a `User-Agent` header naming your application on every Strings and TMS call. The Strings API answers 400 without one
3. Keep Strings calls under 1,000 in five minutes and four in parallel, and read `X-Rate-Limit-Reset` and `X-Rate-Limit-Reason` on a 429
4. Send at most six texts of 2,000 characters to `/v2/textTranslations`, with `consumerId` and `targetLang`. Term bases and translation memories work only with an AI translation agent profile
5. Use the MCP URL for the account's region, `https://mcp.eu.phrase.com` or `https://mcp.us.phrase.com`, and ask the user for the view consent alone unless the task writes

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, LibreTranslate or Phrase?

Phrase scores 64.2 (B) on agent readiness against LibreTranslate's 49.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. LibreTranslate leads on payments & pricing.

### Do LibreTranslate and Phrase need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call LibreTranslate and Phrase without installing anything?

Yes. LibreTranslate has a hosted endpoint at https://libretranslate.com and Phrase at https://mcp.eu.phrase.com.

### Are LibreTranslate and Phrase open source?

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


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/libretranslate-vs-phrase.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "libretranslate", "b": "phrase"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare libretranslate phrase`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/libretranslate.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/phrase.json

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