# Lokalise vs Phrase

> Lokalise scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Phrase's 64.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Phrase leads on schema & documentation. Both do translate text. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lokalise-vs-phrase
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lokalise-vs-phrase.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lokalise-vs-phrase.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lokalise-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

Lokalise scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Phrase's 64.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Phrase leads on schema & documentation. Both do translate text.

- Lokalise: grade BB, 71.3/100, rank #115 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lokalise.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lokalise.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

### 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 55
- Security & auth, 73 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 81 against 74

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

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

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 76

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 | Lokalise | Phrase | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 84 | 55 | Lokalise +29 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 87 | Phrase +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 70 | Phrase +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 58 | Lokalise +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 83 | Lokalise +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 74 | Lokalise +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **71.3 · BB** | **64.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lokalise | Phrase |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Lokalise, Inc. | Phrase a.s. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.lokalise.com/api2` | `https://mcp.eu.phrase.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Lokalise Master Service Agreement. The CLI and the Node SDK on GitHub are BSD 3-Clause | 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 | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.phrase/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-11-01 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-03-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 124 stars, 338k npm/wk, 39k PyPI/wk | 49 stars, 40k npm/wk, 14k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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`.

### 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, Lokalise or Phrase?

Lokalise scores 71.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Phrase's 64.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Phrase leads on schema & documentation.

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

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

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

Yes. Lokalise has a hosted endpoint at https://api.lokalise.com/api2 and Phrase at https://mcp.eu.phrase.com.


## For agents

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

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