Lokalise

Our team started using Lokalise when our product was preparing to enter the Japanese and Korean markets. We had roughly 3,000 UI strings that needed translation into five languages, and managing Excel spreadsheets manually had become completely unworkable. Lokalise's onboarding process was smoother than I expected — their CLI tool could directly extract translatable strings from our code repository, and after translation was complete, it automatically pushed results back to the codebase, integrating seamlessly with our CI/CD pipeline. What satisfied me most was the collaboration interface — translators could work directly in the platform with full context of where each string appears in the UI, rather than working from disconnected spreadsheets. The platform supports over 50 file formats out of the box — React JSON, Rails YAML, Android XML, iOS strings, you name it. The integration with version control systems (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) means translations flow automatically between your code and Lokalise without manual uploads. Where Lokalise earns its keep is in the translation management workflow. You can set up translation memory (so repeated strings get auto-translated), machine translation suggestions (which translators can accept, reject, or modify), and review workflows (ensuring nothing gets published without proper review). For teams working at scale, these features are essential. The pricing starts at a level that makes sense for small teams, scaling up as you add more languages and team members. We're on the business plan with five translators and three developers, and the per-user pricing is reasonable compared to hiring a project manager to coordinate everything manually. If you're managing product localization with more than a handful of languages and multiple translators, Lokalise is worth evaluating. It won't do the translation for you (though it integrates with machine translation services), but it will dramatically reduce the coordination overhead and errors that come with spreadsheet-based workflows.

I've managed internationalization projects for three products using Lokalise, from initial hundreds of strings to later projects with over 10,000 multilingual content entries. Here's my deep assessment of the platform's capabilities and issues. The developer experience is where Lokalise excels. Their API and CLI tools are the most complete I've used — I can extract all strings marked for translation from our codebase with one command, upload to Lokalise, then after translation, pull results back with another command to generate language-specific resource files. This workflow integrates cleanly with our CI/CD pipeline. The platform supports all the file formats we use (React i18next JSON, Rails YAML, Flutter ARB) without custom configuration. The translation memory feature saves enormous time. When we added a fourth product that shared significant UI text with our first product, the translation memory automatically suggested translations for matching strings. For our Japanese localization, about 30% of new strings were exact matches or close matches to existing translations, meaning translators only needed to handle genuinely new content. Machine translation integration works well as a starting point. We connect Google Translate and DeepL as MT providers, and new strings get pre-translated automatically. Translators then review and correct these suggestions rather than translating from scratch. This cuts translation time roughly in half for our team, though the quality of MT suggestions varies significantly by language pair. The review workflow is essential for quality control. We set up a system where translators submit their work, then a senior reviewer approves or requests changes before strings get marked as 'published.' Only published strings get pulled back to our codebase. This prevents unreviewed translations from reaching production. Where Lokalise frustrates is in the pricing model. Per-user pricing adds up quickly when you have multiple translators, reviewers, and developers who need access. We have eight team members who need some level of access, and the monthly cost is significant. For smaller teams or projects, the free tier or lower plans may suffice, but scaling up gets expensive. The screenshot feature is underrated. Developers can upload screenshots of the UI, and translators see the context of where each string appears. This reduces questions like 'what does this button do?' and improves translation quality because translators understand the UI context. My honest assessment: Lokalise is the best localization management platform I've used for product teams. It's not cheap, and it's overkill for simple projects with one or two languages. But if you're managing product localization with multiple languages, multiple translators, and need integration with your development workflow, Lokalise solves real problems that spreadsheets and manual coordination can't handle. The time savings in coordination alone justify the cost for teams working at scale.