Localazy vs Smartcat

Localazy is a localization management platform from a Czech company, built mainly for developers and small product teams who want to translate apps and websites without a heavy process. Its distinctive feature is ShareTM, a shared translation memory pooled across projects, which can automatically pre-fill common strings such as button labels and system messages in many languages.

Teams upload source files through the CLI, API or integrations, and Localazy supports common formats for Android, iOS, Flutter, JSON-based web frameworks, gettext and more. Translations can come from ShareTM, machine translation engines such as DeepL and Google, in-house contributors, community volunteers or Localazy's own professional translation service, with review workflows, glossaries and screenshots for context. Plans are tiered by the number of source keys and features, starting with a free plan for small projects and moving to paid plans for growing products.

Localazy suits indie developers, startups and open-source maintainers that want affordable localization with minimal setup. It has fewer enterprise controls and integrations than Lokalise, Phrase or Crowdin, which serve large localization teams with complex workflows, and Tolgee and Weblate are open-source alternatives for teams that prefer self-hosting. For a small app expanding into a few markets, the shared memory and machine pre-translation can noticeably reduce translation cost and effort.

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.