Compare
A private DeepL alternative that runs on your device.
DeepL translates your text on their servers, under a privacy policy. Traxlate translates it on your machine, where a policy is not needed — the text has no path to a server. This page is honest about what each approach buys you.
The one difference that matters
Every cloud translator — DeepL included — works the same way: your text is sent to their servers, translated there, and sent back. What happens to it in between is governed by a policy you are asked to trust. DeepL’s policies are reputable, and for many people that is enough.
Traxlate is built the other way around. You install a language pack once, and from then on translation runs in your browser, on your hardware. “We can’t read your text” is not a promise we make — it is a consequence of the architecture. There is no server translation path to opt out of.
Side by side
| DeepL | Traxlate | |
|---|---|---|
| Where translation runs | Their cloud, always | Your device, always |
| Privacy model | Policy-based — you trust their handling | Architectural — the text never leaves |
| Price | Free tier, then €7.49–49.99 per seat per month | $0 unlimited on-device; $5.99/mo Pro for sync and the local API |
| Document translation | Free tier: 3 small files per month, then paid | 12 formats plus PDF, unmetered, free |
| Glossary | Suggested terms; enterprise glossary features on paid tiers | Enforced — your term appears in the output, exactly as you wrote it |
| Formality control | Yes, in 9 languages | No formality toggle; topic packs steer domain vocabulary instead |
| Rephrasing | Click-to-rephrase alternatives | No — the engine checks its own answer before showing it, but does not offer variants |
| Works offline | No | Yes, forever, after a one-time pack install |
| Languages | Their published list | 66, of which 18 are tuned hardest — we refuse languages we can’t do well |
Choose DeepL if…
- You need maximum polish in a language pair we haven’t tuned as hard. DeepL’s perceived quality in its core European pairs is deservedly famous, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of claim this site doesn’t make.
- You want click-to-rephrase and formality control — DeepL offers formality in 9 languages; we don’t offer it at all.
- You need enterprise workflows: seat management, admin controls, and organisation-wide glossaries managed centrally.
- You can’t spare roughly 2 GB of disk for a language pack, or you work on a device too weak to run one.
Choose Traxlate if…
- The text is the kind that shouldn’t travel — contracts, medical records, unreleased work, anything under NDA. On-device means the question of who can read it never comes up.
- You translate documents in volume. Our 12 document formats and PDF translation are unmetered and free, because they run on your hardware, not ours.
- Your terminology must survive. A Traxlate glossary entry is enforced in the output, not suggested — a product name that must never be translated, stays.
- You need it to work offline — on a plane, behind a firewall, in the field.
- You’d rather pay $5.99 a month for sync and a local API than per seat for the right to translate. Translation itself is free here, on any plan.
The honest row
We don’t publish a benchmark table claiming to beat DeepL, because single-number comparisons flatter whoever ran them. What we will say plainly: Traxlate runs two engines against each other and checks the winner before you see it, sustains a measured ~43 characters per second on a consumer GPU, and does all of it without your text leaving the machine. Try both on your own text — that is the only benchmark that matters. The guide explains exactly what gets installed and what runs where.