Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I built a fast, accurate translation API for 1/30th the price of Google
Hey HN, I built an alternative to Google translate that's fast, accurate, and 1/30th the price. 20+ supported languages, not billed until 100k tokens, and already used thousands of times with real language learning users. The landing page has a demo for you to test performance yourself for free with no card required. (Also landing page says 1/13 the price because had to account for all 3 big names, with varying prices each). I built this as a workaround for my language learning startup, and it was perfect at a fraction of the cost. Hopefully it can help other devs in accessibility…
This is a translation API that supports over 20 languages and costs significantly less than major alternatives like Google Translate. It offers fast and accurate translations with a free tier that includes 100,000… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I built a fast, accurate translation API for 1/30th the price of Google launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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An accurate translation API 1/30th the price of Google
2023 · translateapi.web.app · its alternatives →
- 2
A few years ago, right after high school, I decided to try to make a simultaneous translation app for Android as a side project, it took longer than expected (about 2 years) and I had to make a lot of compromises (I had to use Google's API and therefore make users use a developer key because at the time there were no free solutions for speech recognition and translation that had good quality). At the end of university, I decided to pick it up again and finally, using OpenAi's Whisper for speech recognition and Meta's NLLB for translation (with both running locally on the phone), I managed to…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Pinch▲535Hey HN! I’m Christian, daily lurker and some might remember our original launch post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42935355). Today we're launching Pinch for Mac, which we believe is a step-change improvement in real-time AI translation. Our vision is to make cross-lingual conversations feel as natural as regular conversations. TL:DR During an online meeting, the app instantly transcribes and translates all audio you hear, and allows you to decide when you translate your voice and when you don't. It's invisible to others (like Granola), and works everywhere without any…
2025 · startpinch.com · its alternatives →
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Real-time speech-to-speech translation API
Jun 2026 · krisp.ai · its alternatives →
- 5
Fast voice-to-text on 92 languages
2023 · lingvanex.com · its alternatives →
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TranslateGemma ▲275Open translation on Google models, supporting 55 languages
Jan 2026 · blog.google · its alternatives →
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Google Translate▲298Translate languages in real-time on your mobile phone
2015 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 8UM
Hello, I made machine translation server for Ubuntu that can translate unlimited volume of text, HTML, files and audio via REST API. It works ultra-fast, translate millions of web-pages / day in 110 languages. This helps to drive more customers or enter new markets easily. It comes as a docker image. The price starts from $200 / month. Easy integration with your projects. Free demo available. More details here: https://lingvanex.com/translationserver/ Or write me: [email protected]
2022 · its alternatives →
- 9
Translate the video with GPT model and Azure Speech Services
2024 · speech.microsoft.com · its alternatives →
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Translator▲114Translate any video to 30+ languages with latest AI
Jan 2026 · translator.tools · its alternatives →
- 11
Ditch Google Translate & opt for human-powered translations
2023 · risetranslate.com · its alternatives →
- 12
TransLite▲98Hello ! David from Spain here :) I built TransLite because I was tired of breaking my flow every time I needed to translate something before sending it. The usual workflow was: copy → open a browser tab → paste → translate → copy again → paste back. I've created a small macOS menubar app that lets you translate the current clipboard instantly using a keyboard shortcut, in any app. It works locally and supports using your own OpenAI / Claude API key. It’s intentionally simple — no accounts, no tracking, no subscriptions. Happy to answer any questions. Best regards, David
Feb 2026 · translite.app · its alternatives →
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Facebook Translator bot, supports more than 10 languages
2017 · messenger.com · its alternatives →
- 14
Hey there! Out of the necessity to teach my son a new language, I developed an app just for him. After months of use and realizing how effective it was, I decided to make it available to the public. Now, I’m looking for your support, feedback, and possibly help in reaching potential customers. Take a look and let me know your thoughts! Thank you!
2024 · voiczy.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Hi folks, Alex here with a launch I’m hoping for some feedback on! I recently finished what started as a hackathon-style project with a friend, which has now become TranslateMyCall.com. The problem we set out to solve is that there’s currently no way to interpret phone calls between languages without a human in the loop. Apps like Google Translate work well for in-person conversations, and Skype (surprising, right?) is the best I’ve found for VoIP interpreting. But for traditional phone calls, your only option is paying $1 to $4 per minute for a human interpreter through a service like…
2024 · translatemycall.com · its alternatives →
- 16IB
Hey HN! I built Transcrib.ee to help me generate transcripts for lectures on YouTube with no captions, especially multilingual lectures. I was constantly frustrated with videos that had no transcripts or inaccurate ones, so I built a tool and decided to share it with everyone. This tool uses Groq (an AI inference engine that's different from Grok and offers very fast processing) and OpenAI's Whisper model (really accurate in multilingual) to quickly transcribe any YouTube video, regardless of the language. It's been a game-changer for my studies! To make it even faster, I created a Chrome…
2024 · transcrib.ee · its alternatives →
- 17IW
As hard as I tried, I didn't find a modern language learning book that's either very academic, or like "master a language with my super-magic great method in 3 months". So I dug into the academic research, tried many techniques myself, saw what worked, wrote a book for learners of any language and any level, and made it free without ads. Today, finally, a 2 years-long project ends. I hope it helps anyone. Book's here: https://thehardway.guide/ Cheers
2023 · its alternatives →
- 18
Google Translate API with 243 languages supported
2024 · rapidapi.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Nativly ▲11Translate your website into 60+ languages and rank in Google worldwide. Nativly creates fully indexed pages with hreflang tags to boost multilingual SEO — no coding required. Go live in 5 minutes.
Mar 2026 · nativly.app · its alternatives →
- 20GA
In the dark old days when I was uninspired and couldn't come up with a name for a project I'd hop onto my old pal Google Translate and see if a keyword associated with my name "sounded cool in German" If it did, and the domain was unused I'd scoop it up and use it. This process took a while, I'd try German, French, Russian, Armenian, Latvian, etc trying to find something cool that wasn't already being used. So I built http://www.catelus.com/ It translates your keyword into more than 30 different languages and checks if your-word-in-german.com and your-word-in-polish.com are…
2016 · its alternatives →
- 21
Fast & Easy Online Translation tool!
2020 · onlinetranslationpro.com · its alternatives →
- 2201
Hey HN! I've been working on a side project to create an audio transcription API based on the OpenAI whisper model. Sign up link: https://whisperapi.com I tried to make the API really easy to use and get setup with. Also, because the Whisper model is so good, turns out I can offer the service for about 75% cheaper than what seems like the industry average. I'm always looking to make improvements, so would appreciate any feedback anyone has!
2022 · whisperapi.com · its alternatives →
- 23
I've used Anki for years, first for studying Chinese and now for German. Previously, I would never create flashcards on the go, because it's so cumbersome on the mobile Anki app. Instead I would send words to myself on telegram, and then process them at home. So I got tired of it, and built a telegram bot for creating German flashcards on the go. No languages except German are supported for now. How it works: - You send a German word or a sentence to the bot. - It uses an LLM to automatically generate a flashcard, complete with a mnemonic, translation, etc. - You customize and save the card…
2025 · zettelwerk.app · its alternatives →
- 24IM
Hey HN! Thank you for all the support and feedback on my original submission 2 months ago. I've been improving the backend using a MCTS/AlphaZero approach and it's currently producing much better results. My long term goal is to allow users to manage multiple projects, deployed autonomously, both from scratch and by making continual updates all prompted with natural language. The cost of each project has been lowered to $9 as performance with smaller models has improved (I migrated from Claude-3-Opus to gemini-1.5-flash). Thanks for checking it out!
2024 · saas-quick.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →