Locize Review: Streamline Your Software Localization Process

Providing localized versions of software and websites is crucial, but what’s the best way to handle translations and other localization tasks? In this Locize review, I got to grips with the modern localization platform, which promises to streamline the entire process.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What is Locize?

Locize is a continuous localization solution for software, apps, websites, video games, and other projects. 

The cloud-based platform lets you easily manage your team and translations, and offers custom glossaries, Machine, and AI translation tools, to save time and money.

You can try Locize for 14 days and the scalable pricing model starts from just $5/mo.

Key Features

Let’s take a closer look at how you can make localization more efficient with Locize:

Seamless Integration

The Locize dashboard is your one-stop hub for managing translations and localization. It’s also where admins manage billing, set user permissions, view project analytics, and stay informed about translation progress.

You can easily get started by adding a new project, choosing an i18n instrument, uploading files, and integrating your code.

For many projects, it requires only a one-line script to extract content for translation, seamlessly integrating with popular JavaScript app development and internationalization frameworks and libraries. 

Furthermore, you can synchronize local translations with your translations in Locize. Any changes are automatically published to the Locize CDN and are available to users.

Overall, everything you need is here for code integration, automated upload rules, and continuous localization. Now you don’t have to rely on the developers to keep the codebase updated with translation files.

Machine Translation

While you can use Locize strictly as a translation and localization management solution, it really shines by automating aspects of the translation itself.

For example, it integrates with Machine Translation engines like Google Translate and DeepL. So, when new content is added to a project, you immediately get an accurate translation from your chosen service.

Then your team can fine-tune it manually and make use of Locize’s other powerful features before publishing it.

You can set Machine Translation to run automatically, creating an efficient and scalable workflow.

Glossaries

Chances are that your project has some specific terminology and jargon that should be consistent across translations. Glossaries allow users to maintain a centralized list of these preferred terms that take precedence over automatic translations generated by Machine Translation engines or AI.

What’s more, Locize’s translation editor automatically suggests glossary entries when relevant terms or phrases are encountered during translation.

Users can create and manage glossary entries manually or by importing them from external sources. They can include terms, definitions, part of speech, and translations for each target language.

By setting your glossaries at the start, it allows you to leverage Locize’s other features more effectively.

Smart Translation Memory

Another useful feature is translation memory. Locize stores previously translated content and allows it to be reused in future projects. This helps maintain consistency across translations and reduces manual effort by automatically suggesting or pre-populating translations when the same or similar content is encountered.

You get full control over how to Implement Translation Memory, choosing which projects should be factored in. Then whenever you’re working on translations, you can expand the Translation Memory tab on the right to see relevant results.

Each one links back to the original project, and you only have to click to accept the suggestion.

AI Translation

Localization is further enhanced by AI translation tools, which can surpass Machine Translation when it comes to context and tone.

It’s flexibly implemented and designed to enhance the process. For example, you might use the AI for initial translations or later to refine translations, as it effortlessly shortens, rephrases, and iterates different segments. These are offered as suggestions and can instantly be undone.

You can choose which AI provider and language model to use, such as OpenAI, Gemini or MistralAI, and add your own API keys to retain data ownership.

InContext Editing

The InContext Editor gives translators the vital visual context needed to better understand the user experience. 

Instead of just translating text, users can access screenshots or even a direct iframe view (for website translation), showing where that text appears when published.

Reviewing Translations 

To maintain oversight and quality control, admins can configure a review process, called Review Workflow. 

When enabled for specific languages, the Review Workflow ensures that any changes made to a translation must be approved before going live.

Multiple translations can be proposed, giving the reviewer the choice to pick the best one.

Versioning

By supporting multiple versions of translations within a single project, Locize enables users to track changes, compare versions, easily rollback, or branch or merge branches.

For example, creating separate versions of a translation for different purposes, such as testing, development, or production. 

Once changes have been made and approved, these versions can be copied back into the main translation, streamlining the localization workflow.

Pricing

Locize follows a usage-based pricing model that scales as needed, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes. You can try all features for free for 14 days, then subscribe and start at $5/mo.

Pricing dynamically scales, so you are never locked into an expensive plan.

Locize Review – Verdict 

To conclude this Locize review, the platform is an excellent choice for businesses looking for an affordable, flexible, and powerful localization solution that can help them adapt their products and services to a global audience.

The team behind Locize is the same team as the one behind i18next. So you’re getting the best possible support for it.

With a user-friendly interface, robust features like code integration, InContext editing, and Machine and AI translations, Locize simplifies the localization process, streamlining collaboration and automating tedious tasks.

Try Locize Today!