Phrase vs Smartling
Two enterprise platforms: a technology suite against technology plus services.
Phrase and Smartling are both built for enterprises that localize at scale, across software, websites, marketing and documentation. Both route machine translation across many engines, both have translation memory, glossaries, style guides, automated quality checks and configurable workflows, and both connect to code repositories and major CMSs.
The main difference is what you are buying. Phrase is a technology platform made of Phrase Strings for software and Phrase TMS, the former Memsource, for content, which you use with your own linguists or vendors. Smartling combines its platform with Smartling Language Services, so you can buy machine, AI-assisted and human translation from the same company, priced per word by translation type.
At a glance
Choose Phrase if you have your own linguists or vendors and want a strong technology suite with mobile over-the-air delivery and a native Laravel PHP format. Choose Smartling if you want one vendor for both the platform and the translation itself, or need a translation proxy to localize websites without code changes.
Phrase vs Smartling, side by side
How the two platforms differ on the questions that decide most evaluations.
| Aspect | Phrase | Smartling |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Cloud; Phrase TMS runs in EU and US data centres | Cloud service |
| Open source | Closed platform; open-source CLI and public OTA SDKs | Closed platform; open-source CLI |
| Pricing model | Tiered platform plans driven by seats, words, MT and AI units and OTA usage; free trial, no free plan | Per-word pricing by translation type (machine, AI, AI plus human, human); a free-to-start plan and a sales-led enterprise plan |
| How translations reach production | Repo sync opens pull requests; CLI and API; OTA for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, i18next and Rails | GitHub connector opens pull requests; CLI and API; Global Delivery Network proxy for websites |
| Integrations | 200+ tools, including code repositories, Figma and CMSs such as Contentful, WordPress, Drupal and AEM | 50+ connectors, including GitHub, Figma, Contentful, Salesforce, Shopify and Storyblok |
| Machine translation & AI | Phrase Language AI with 30+ MT engines, MT Autoselect and a quality performance score | AI Hub with 20+ LLMs and MT engines, automatic engine selection and bring-your-own-key |
| Best for | Enterprises with in-house linguists or their own vendors | Enterprises that want platform and translation services from one provider |
Hosting
Phrase: Cloud; Phrase TMS runs in EU and US data centres
Smartling: Cloud service
Open source
Phrase: Closed platform; open-source CLI and public OTA SDKs
Smartling: Closed platform; open-source CLI
Pricing model
Phrase: Tiered platform plans driven by seats, words, MT and AI units and OTA usage; free trial, no free plan
Smartling: Per-word pricing by translation type (machine, AI, AI plus human, human); a free-to-start plan and a sales-led enterprise plan
How translations reach production
Phrase: Repo sync opens pull requests; CLI and API; OTA for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, i18next and Rails
Smartling: GitHub connector opens pull requests; CLI and API; Global Delivery Network proxy for websites
Integrations
Phrase: 200+ tools, including code repositories, Figma and CMSs such as Contentful, WordPress, Drupal and AEM
Smartling: 50+ connectors, including GitHub, Figma, Contentful, Salesforce, Shopify and Storyblok
Machine translation & AI
Phrase: Phrase Language AI with 30+ MT engines, MT Autoselect and a quality performance score
Smartling: AI Hub with 20+ LLMs and MT engines, automatic engine selection and bring-your-own-key
Best for
Phrase: Enterprises with in-house linguists or their own vendors
Smartling: Enterprises that want platform and translation services from one provider
Where they really differ
Platform only, or platform plus translators
Phrase sells technology: you bring the translators, whether in-house, freelance or a language-service provider, and Phrase TMS gives you vendor management to coordinate them. Smartling sells technology and can also supply the translation through Smartling Language Services, a network of professional linguists, with tiers that mix AI and human work. If you want one contract and one invoice for both, Smartling is built for that. If you already have vendors you trust, Phrase avoids paying for services you will not use.
Websites and apps
Smartling’s Global Delivery Network is a translation proxy: it serves translated versions of a website without changes to the site’s code, which suits marketing sites owned by teams without engineering time. Its older mobile over-the-air SDK is no longer supported. Phrase Strings offers over-the-air delivery for iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter, and for i18next and Rails on the web, which suits product teams that want live string updates inside their apps.
Developers and file formats
Both connect to GitHub and open pull requests with translations. Phrase Strings lists a Laravel PHP array format among its supported files, so Laravel lang directories import directly. Smartling does not list a PHP format in its supported file types; Laravel’s JSON lang files would fit its JSON type, but PHP lang files would need converting.
Routing machine translation
Both vendors treat machine translation as a routing problem rather than a single engine. Phrase Language AI connects to more than thirty engines, MT Autoselect picks one per domain and language pair, and the quality performance score estimates how much review a segment needs. Smartling’s AI Hub brings together more than twenty large language models and MT engines, selects among them automatically and lets you bring your own provider keys. Smartling also offers a language quality assessment suite for structured human review.
Choose Phrase if…
- You have in-house linguists or contracted vendors already.
- You need over-the-air updates for mobile apps or i18next and Rails web apps.
- You localize a Laravel app with PHP lang files.
- You want MT routing and quality scoring inside a full TMS.
Choose Smartling if…
- You want to buy translation services and the platform from one provider.
- You need to localize websites through a proxy without code changes.
- You want per-word pricing that varies by translation type.
- Your stack centres on CMSs and commerce platforms such as Contentful, Salesforce or Shopify.
Frequently asked questions
A third option · this is our product
If you are a Laravel team, consider LangSyncer
Phrase and Smartling are enterprise platforms for organisations with localization departments. If you are a Laravel team that mostly needs interface copy translated and live, LangSyncer is far lighter: it uses your existing lang files and __() calls, translates with GPT or DeepL, finds hardcoded strings with a code scanner, and publishes to production without a deploy.