European alternatives to Google Translate? Preferably not LLM. (piefed.social)

submitted 1 week ago by unknowablenight@piefed.social to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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Hello all! I'm looking for a good alternative to Google Translate. I would prefer one that isn't using a modern LLM, but I understand if that's not possible. I would also like it to not be collecting personal data.

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[-] george@feddit.org 71 points 1 week ago

DeepL is probably the best option.

[-] broom@piefed.social 11 points 1 week ago

Definitely DeepL! Translations have an excellent quality and you can alter words and easily rephrase sentences within the web interface. The smartphone app is good very good.

[-] stenAanden@feddit.dk 5 points 1 week ago

Look at this answer OP

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 1 week ago

Deepl was the first using an LLM though richt? They have always advertised that it was AI.

OP specifically doesn't want that if possible.

Or is it a different class of "AI"?

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not really european (the main dev is from florida), but free and open source without collecting your data:

https://libretranslate.com/

[-] randomname@scribe.disroot.org 6 points 1 week ago

I use that, too, and you can run it locally.

[-] Europellinore@europe.pub 22 points 1 week ago

DeepL https://www.deepl.com/en/translate

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

OP specifically requested non-LLM.

[-] Niquarl@lemmy.ml -2 points 1 week ago

How can a translation app work without LLM though ?

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

The same way they worked before LLMs came on to the scene a few years ago.

Were you under the impression that that was simply an intractable problem before we decided to brute force it with GPUs? Various online translation services have existed for well over a decade (honestly, I don’t even remember when they first started to become a thing, but it’s not a new technology). NLP has been an important domain of computer science for the vast majority of the life of the field itself.

[-] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

What's NLP?

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

Natural Language Processing.

As the article mentions, it is closely related, though very much not identical to, the field of Artificial Intelligence. And do please note that my usage of “Artificial Intelligence” here is absolutely not synonymous with the big tech buzzword circlejerk definition of “AI” that’s bandied about so clumsily these days (which is, incidentally, why I always tend to quote it, or just refer directly to LLMs, when I am taking about “AI” as understood by the layman/marketing and sales types).

[-] Wfh@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago

As other said DeepL is European and a good option. I have no idea how much data they collect.

If you want to guarantee zero data collection, running a model like Ministral locally on your device using a trustworthy front end is probably the only option.

[-] BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Firefox's built in translator from Project Bergamot is made by a co-operation of several European universities and Mozilla. It's a local LLM that you download so the translation never leaves your computer. You can translate whole pages with it or select text and right click and "Translate selection". The only problem is that if you had some raw text you copied from somewhere. You'd need to go to some pastebin site, paste the text, select it and translate selection. I guess it's not that inconvenient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Bergamot https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/translations/resources/03_bergamot.html https://bergamot.mt/

There used to be a desktop version somewhere but I couldn't get it to work. You can run the wasm version from their git repo maybe

[-] jacksilver@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Just for awareness, Google Translate is based on LLMs. Translation is actually why LLMs were initially made and you won't find a better method for translation (besides hiring a translator). The thing you're looking for is an LLM only for translation.

[-] horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean LLMs kind of dropped out of the work to build translation engines. There are models which are better trained towards doing translation than being an agent of bullshit, but the architecture is usually the same.

[-] Adalberaht@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 week ago

Reverso is a french translation service, even better than DeepL imo. Their context translation is especially useful.

[-] Szewek@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, with Reverso you can see how the word has been translated in different context, super useful if you actually want to learn.

And their general translator is also good for longer texts. I've been using DeepL for that, though, and haven't made a proper comparison.

[-] andybytes@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This might not be a perfect fit or off topic but I had to chime in and recomend Transcribro Transcribro is a private and on-device speech recognition keyboard and service for Android. It uses whisper.cpp to run the OpenAI Whisper family of models and Silero VAD for voice activity detection. It features a voice input keyboard, enabling you to type with speech. It can also be used by other apps either explicitly or when set as the user-selected speech to text app which some apps may use for speech to text. Transcribro is available on the Accrescent app store and GitHub releases. Accrescent is the recommended way to get Transcribro as it is more secure than GitHub releases. altr

[-] alfredon996@feddit.it 0 points 1 week ago

Lingvanex, DeepL

If you want something open-source/self-hostable there is LibreTranslate

[-] twinnie@feddit.uk -1 points 1 week ago

Why not LLM? When ChatGPT came out I was living a country where I didn’t speak much of the local language. GPT was a game changer, it didn’t just translate the words, it understood the context and it was much more useful.

[-] dynamoMaus@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

AI does not "undestand"

Especially not the context. LLMs are Mathematical Methods.

But I agree: They are actually good for translating especially when focused on translation - like deepl

this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026

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