Top 5 best translation APIs in 2020
Project research
In this article, I will list the top 5 best translation APIs in 2020 during my research on the upcoming project "iEnglish"; along with the pros and cons about each translation API.
Firstly, what is the translation API?
Translation API simply translating text, words or even images into hundreds of different languages for your website or apps. Translation APIs can also programmatically detect input languages, which are based on statistical machine translation and machine learning.
To support iEnglish having a language-rich website that anyone in every country can understand and access, I have looked at some translation APIs based on four key criteria:
- API features
- Language supported
- Pricing
- Ease of use
Here are the top 5 best translation APIs I’m going to evaluate:
1️⃣ Google Translate API
API features
Google Translate API, you can quickly translate a string of text from one language to other language. Incase the source language is unknown, the API can detect the provided language. The advantage with this API translation is that it translates each sentence line by line with a very high accuracy of over 90%. However, the pricing when using the Google Translate API is something that many people including myself care about. A maximum of 2,000,000 characters per day can be used. Pricing is about 20 USD for 1 million characters. Personally I found it quite pricy and I will not use this translate API for the iEnglish project.
Language supported
The API supports more than 100 languages.
Pricing
Free for less than 50 requests per day. Otherwise you will have to pay 0.05 USD for each additional request.
Ease of use
Easy to use, well documented.
2️⃣ Microsoft Translation API
API features
Microsoft Translator Text API is a JSON-based REST API that developers can easily integrate into their applications, websites, tools or any solution that requires multi-language support such as in website, e-commerce, customer support, messaging, internal communication and more. The advantage of this translation API is that it can translate into multiple languages at the same time, convert text into different alphabets to make it easier to read and have high accuracy like Google Translate API. The user can choose the alternative word translation depending on the context, I think this is a strong point. However, with this translation API, I find the cost is high so that I will not use this for my project.
Language supported
The API supports more than 60 languages.
Pricing
Free for less than 2,500 requests/ month. For any extended usage, plan start from 25 USD to 200 USD per month.
Ease of use
Easy, provide quick-start guides.
3️⃣ Microsoft Translation API and 4️⃣ Microsoft Translation API
API features
These 2 translation API are very similar. Both can easily translate small text, document, images and site link to your preferable language. The advantage of these translation APIs is easy to use, the user interface is simple, the translation is fast, and the user can share the translation link easily. However, I have tested both translation APIs, and its accuracy is not that high compared to the rest of the translation APIs. There are many incorrectly translated words and there is no function for the alternative word translation.
Language supported
Yandex Translate API supports more than 90 languages, whereas SYSTRAN.io Translation API supports more than 130 languages.
Pricing
Free.
Ease of use
Both translation API have easy access with a simple interface. SYSTRAN.io Translation API provides detailed documented and code samples to make it easy integrating API into website and app.
5️⃣ Microsoft Translation API
API features
With the Linguatools Translate API, its features are similar with other translation API, however the API translates from and to German for only different of 6 languages. Personally, I think it is a good point since it doesn’t translate to many other language, the rate of accuracy could be high, but at the same time, it gives developers very limited choices of languages they want.
Language supported
The API supports translations from and to the German language for different languages, such as English, Dutch, Czech, Spanish, Italian, and Polish.
Pricing
Free for less than 1,000 requests/ month, otherwise the plan start from 4.90 USD to 24.90 USD/ month.
Ease of use
Easy with simple documentation for integrating the API into your web and app.
Summary
After reviewing the top 5 translation APIs for both advantages and disadvantages I would probably use one of the two translation APIs such as Yandex Translate API or SYSTRAN.io Translation API. Although the translation accuracy is not high, but their documentation very straightforward and most importantly it's free, which I think is a strong point for me to experiment on my personal project.
In the future if I have a broader development, go deeper on the project and have the budget. I will think about Google Translate API and Microsoft Translation API because these translation API has better features which other 3 doesn't has.
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