Excellent translation solution (detailed review)

I’m a web developer and I have developed several multilingual sites using Polylang and WPML. I started out using WPML and then switched to Polylang on my new sites.
I recently built a site using Elementor and tested Translatepress and I was blown away how simple the translation process was. The user interface was so simple and Translatepress didn’t seem to slow down the site at all. I was so impressed I bought the Business license.

I was able to translate slugs, taxonomies (tags and categories), SEO meta data, custom post types, global widgets and templates. Usually I would have had to sift through different string translation interfaces and create different templates for different languages but Translatepress was so simple.

I have build sites long enough to understand that not everything needs to happen in the front end and I don’t always like to use the WordPress customizer. With that in mind I was genuinely delighted that I could translate everything in the front end and didn’t need to skip back and forth between the front end and the dashboard.

Global elements are very useful on larger sites and you can easily translate Elementors global widgets with Translatepress! I can’t stress how great that is. My sites have several Elementor’s global widgets like Call to action buttons and other global elements and Translatepress handles them very gracefully.

My client also wanted to use a professional translator and I was able to teach her how to use Translatepress in 15 minutes.

Speed is also a major factor when choosing WordPress plugins. Compared to WPML Translatepress is very lightweight and more user friendly. Translatepress doesn’t really affect the loading speed of my site. WPML is quite heavy and I don’t need all the different translation services that WPML offers and WPML needs to install several different plugins for integrations and even String translation. Polylang is lighter than WPML but is not well integrated with Elementor.

Pros
– Fast! I haven’t noticed any slowdowns on my site.
– Good customer support: I needed support on two occasions and they responded very quickly and solved my issues.
– Simple user interface: no need to sift through different string translation interfaces or create duplicate templates for different elements (widgets, headers, footers etc.)
– Great integration with Elementor: I don’t need to create duplicate translated pages for translated pages. I can just translate the text in different elements and the layouts stay the same. I can also hide elements from certain languages.
– Great integration and compatibility with other plugins (Yoast, ACF, CPT UI, etc.)
– Ability to translate custom post types and taxonomies
– WooCommerce compatible

Cons:
– You have to translate all pages and posts. You can’t hide untranslated pages or posts if they are not translated. You can hide content within the posts but not redirect to the front page if the page/post is not yet translated. This means untranslated pages/posts are visible in your sitemap and may be accessed with a direct url. This feature will probably be added in the future.

Suggestions:
– More options to style the language selector widget.

I highly recommend Translatepress for new sites and if you are using a visual page builder I suggest you try the Elementor + Translatepress combo.
I hope the WordPress community finds Translatepress and they keep improving this awesome translation solution.
And I hope they keep it simple and fast ??