LILT vs Smartcat

LILT is an enterprise translation and localization platform from San Francisco, founded in 2015 by Spence Green and John DeNero, NLP researchers from Stanford and Berkeley. It began with adaptive machine translation that learns from each linguist edit and has since become an agentic AI platform that routes content through AI models and, where needed, human subject-matter experts. Customers include Canva, Intel, Lenovo and US defence agencies.

The platform is split into modules: Translate for projects, Assist for AI agents that automate review and workflows, Verify for accuracy checks, Connect for integrations and an MCP server that brings LILT translation into ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. It connects to more than 100 systems such as Contentful, AEM, Salesforce and Zendesk, and can run LILT's own models or a customer's LLM. Certifications cover SOC 2 Type II, ISO 9001 and ISO 17100, with private, on-prem and air-gapped deployment. Business, Enterprise and Government plans are all quote-based.

LILT fits large companies and public bodies that translate high volumes of product, support and marketing content and need quality guarantees or strict data control. It has no self-serve plan or public pricing, so it is overkill for small sites. Smartling is a broader translation management system with a vendor marketplace, Phrase offers self-serve TMS tiers, and DeepL is the cheap option for raw machine translation without human review.

LILT raised a Series D in mid-2025. Buying tip: ask how human review is priced versus platform fees, since MCP usage is quoted separately.

Smartcat is an AI translation and localization platform founded in 2016 by Ivan Smolnikov, who earlier built the language services firm ABBYY LS; Smartcat was incubated at ABBYY before spinning out. The company is based in Boston and raised a $43M Series C led by Left Lane Capital in September 2024, bringing total funding to about $70M. Its core job is translating websites, documents, software, e-learning and video into 280+ languages with AI first and human review where it matters.

The platform combines machine translation, translation memory and glossaries with AI Coworkers that handle translation, content updates, review and QA. A marketplace of 500,000+ linguists and 5,000+ agencies lets you hire reviewers inside the same workspace and pay them all on one invoice. Connectors cover CMSs such as WordPress, Webflow and Contentful, Figma, GitHub, Zendesk and Google Drive. Plans are annual, include unlimited users and are metered in Smartwords; matches and repetitions from translation memory are not charged.

Smartcat fits marketing, product and L&D teams that need many languages fast and want to buy human post-editing without managing separate vendors. Developer-heavy teams localizing app strings usually prefer Lokalise or Crowdin, and large enterprises with complex workflows often compare it with Phrase and Smartling.

Buying tip: the entry Adapt plan costs $1,200 a year for 100K Smartwords, and the next tier jumps to $24,000, so estimate yearly volume carefully. Use the 15-day trial, which includes API access, to measure how many Smartwords your real content consumes.