Comparison of machine translation applications

A machine translation application is a program which can translate text or speech from one natural language to another. Machine translation applications are essential to the modern language industry. Please see the individual products' articles for further information.

Contents

General information

Basic general information for popular Machine translation applications.

Name Platform License Price Latest stable release Source availability Notes
Asia Online

Language Studio

 Windows, Linux, Web Commercial Depends on configuration. 2.1 No Language Studio is a server platform for mass scale translation designed as well as a set of desktop tools to aid in translation.
Apertium Unix compatible
Precompiled packages available for Debian		 GPL Free 3.1.1 Yes Rule-based, shallow transfer; all programs and language data are free and open source
Anusaaraka Unix compatible GPL Free 0.50 Yes Rule-based, deep parser based , paninian framework based; all programs and language data are free and open source
Carabao Language Kit Cross-platform web service or embedded Windows Commercial $10,000 (server) + $5,000 per language model 2.0.0.0 No Hybrid semantically aware interlingua MT; language models can be reused for morphological analysis, crosslingual retrieval, entity extraction, question answering
IBM Cross-platform
 Commercial Commercial ? No Both rule-based and statistical models developed by IBM Research. Only the rule-based engine is available as a product, WebSpere Translation Server.
LNISOFT Cross-platform
 Commercial Commercial 5.0 No Hybrid, statistical syntactic parsing model for syntactic transfer, bidirectional translation model training for lexical generation
Matxin Unix compatible GPL Free 1.3.0 Yes Rule-based, deep transfer; programs and some language data are free and open source
WorldLingo Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Freeware Free ? No Uses both Rules based and Statistics based TEs
OpenLogos Windows, Linux GPL or Paid

initiative taker

 Free or not 1.0.3 Yes rule-based, deep transfer
Moses (machine translation) Cross-platform LGPL Free 2008-07-11 Yes Drop-in replacement for Pharaoh, features factored translation models and decoding of confusion networks.
Google Translate Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Paid Free Beta No Statistical
Bing Translator Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Freeware Free Final No Microsoft's linguistically informed statistical MT system
SYSTRAN Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Commercial $200 (desktop) - $15,000 and up (enterprise server) Version 7 No Hybrid rules-based and SMT
GramTrans Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Freeware Free ? No Rule-based, using Constraint Grammar
Promt Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Commercial Commercial 9.5 No Hybrid rules-based and SMT
SDL Language Weaver Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Commercial Commercial ? No
Babylon Windows, Mac Paid Depend on license (from 34$ to 89$ for one license) 9.0 No
Web Lite SWeTE Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Free Version Free Automatic Translation / Human Translations also available 1.0 No
MetaMorpho Cross-platform
(Web application)		 Freeware Free ? No
IdiomaX Windows, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile Paid Depends on configuration 6.0 No Rule-based

Languages features comparison

The following table compares the amount of languages which the following machine translation programs can translate between. (Moses allows to train translation models for any language pair, though collections of translated texts (parallel corpus) need to be provided.)

This is not an all encompassing list. For example, Google and Asia Online have many more language pairs than those listed below. This is a general comparison of key languages only. A full and accurate list of language pairs supported by each product should be found on each of the products websites.

Language Asia Online Apertium OpenLogos Google Translate Babel Fish Bing Translator GramTrans SYSTRAN 1-800-translate PROMT WorldLingo IdiomaX
To English Arabic to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
Catalan to English No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Chinese (Simplified) to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Chinese (Traditional) to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
Czech to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
Danish to English Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes No
Dutch to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
Esperanto to English No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
Estonian to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Finnish to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
French to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Galician language to English No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
German to English Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Greek to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes No
Haitian Creole to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No No No No
Hebrew to English No No No Yes No Yes No No Yes No Yes No
Hindi to English No No No Yes No No No No ? No Yes No
Hungarian to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
Indonesian to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Irish to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Italian to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Japanese to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
Korean to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
Latvian to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No No
Lithuanian to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No No No No No
Macedonian to English No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Malay to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Maltese to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Norwegian to English Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes No
Persian to English No No No Yes No No No No Yes No Yes No
Polish to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Portuguese to English Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Portuguese (Brazilian) to English Yes No No No No No No No No No No No
Romanian to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No Yes No
Russian to English No No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Serbo-Croatian to English Yes No No Yes No No No Yes ? No Yes No
Slovak to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Slovene to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Spanish to English Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Swedish to English Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
Tagalog to English No No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Thai to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Turkish to English Yes No No Yes No Yes No No Yes No Yes No
Ukrainian to English Yes No No Yes No No No No No Yes No No
Welsh to English Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Language Asia Online Apertium OpenLogos Google Translate Babel Fish Bing Translator GramTrans SYSTRAN 1-800-translate PROMT WorldLingo IdiomaX
To Chinese (Simplified) English to Chinese (Simplified) Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
To Chinese (Traditional) English to Chinese (Traditional) Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
To Dutch English to Dutch Yes No ? Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
French to Dutch Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? No Yes No
To French English to French Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
German to French Yes No ? Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? Yes Yes No
Spanish to French Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes
Catalan to French No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Russian to French No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Dutch to French Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? No Yes No
Italian to French Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
Breton to French No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
To Galician English to Galician No Yes ? Yes No No No No No No No No
Portuguese to Galician No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Spanish to Galician No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
To German English to German Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
French to German Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? Yes Yes No
Spanish to German Yes No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Russian to German No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Italian to German Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
To Italian English to Italian Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Spanish to Italian Yes No ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
French to Italian Yes No ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
German to Italian Yes No ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
To Japanese English to Japanese Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
To Korean English to Korean Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
To Portuguese English to Portuguese Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
To Russian English to Russian No No No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
French to Russian No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Spanish to Russian No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
German to Russian No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Italian to Russian No No No Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
To Spanish English to Spanish Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Russian to Spanish No No No Yes No No No No ? Yes Yes No
French to Spanish Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes ? Yes Yes Yes
German to Spanish Yes No ? Yes No Yes No No ? Yes Yes No
Italian to Spanish Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? Yes Yes Yes
To Welsh English to Welsh Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No
Language Asia Online Apertium OpenLogos Google Translate Babel Fish Bing Translator GramTrans SYSTRAN 1-800-translate PROMT WorldLingo IdiomaX
To Arabic English to Arabic Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No
To Catalan English to Catalan No Yes ? Yes No No No No No No No No
French to Catalan No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Italian to Catalan No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Occitan to Catalan No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
Spanish to Catalan No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No
To Czech English to Czech Yes No ? Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
To Danish English to Danish Yes No ? Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No
To Esperanto Catalan to Esperanto No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
Danish to Esperanto No No No No No No Yes No No No No No
English to Esperanto No Yes No No No No Yes No No No No No
French to Esperanto No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
Spanish to Esperanto No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
To Finnish English to Finnish Yes No ? Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
To Greek English to Greek Yes No ? Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes No
To Haitian Creole English to Haitian Creole No No No Yes No Yes No No ? ? ? No
To Hebrew English to Hebrew No No No Yes No Yes No No Yes No Yes No
To Hindi English to Hindi No No No Yes No No No No ? No Yes No
To Hungarian English to Hungarian Yes No ? Yes No Yes No No No No Yes No
To Norwegian Bokmål English to Norwegian Bokmål Yes No ? Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No
Norwegian Nynorsk to Norwegian Bokmål No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
To Norwegian Nynorsk Norwegian Bokmål to Norwegian Nynorsk No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
To Occitan Catalan to Occitan No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
Spanish to Occitan No Yes No No No No No No No No No No
To Persian English to Persian No No No Yes No No No No Yes No Yes No
To Polish English to Polish Yes No ? Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No
To Romanian English to Romanian Yes No ? Yes No No No No No No Yes No
To Serbo-Croatian English to Serbo-Croatian Yes No ? Yes No No Yes No No No Yes No
To Swedish English to Swedish Yes No ? Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No
To Turkish English to Turkish Yes No No Yes No Yes No No Yes No Yes No
To Ukrainian English to Ukrainian Yes No ? Yes No No No No ? Yes No No
Total (confirmed) 77 42 6 65 30 27 8 36 32 43 43 14

See also

References