ai-agent

LibreTranslate

Name: LibreTranslate
Author: LibreTranslate

Free and Open Source Machine Translation API. Self-hosted, offline capable and easy to setup.

16,008 stars1,652 forksPythonUpdated 8/10/2026100% free · open source

What it does

LibreTranslate is a self-hosted, open-source machine translation API that allows you to translate text from one language to another without relying on external services.

Install / run

docker run -d -p 5000:5000 libtranslate/libretranslate

When to use it

•When you need to integrate machine translation into your application without paying for a third-party API
•When you want to keep your translation data private and secure
•When you need to support languages that are not well-supported by commercial translation APIs

Quick start

1Pull the LibreTranslate Docker image: docker pull libtranslate/libretranslate
2Run the container: docker run -d -p 5000:5000 libtranslate/libretranslate
3Test the API: curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5000/translate' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"q":"Hello, world!","source":"en","target":"es"}'
4Configure the API: edit the config.json file to change settings such as the port number or logging level
5Integrate with your application: use the LibreTranslate API endpoint to send translation requests from your application

Ready-to-paste prompt

curl -X POST 'http://localhost:5000/translate' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"q":"This is a test sentence.","source":"en","target":"fr"}'

Heads up: You need to have Docker installed and running on your system to use LibreTranslate, and you should be aware that the initial download of the model data may take some time due to its large size.

Saves to your device

Topics

api

machine

translate

translation

translator

How LibreTranslate works

Codeflow

Free to inspect

LibreTranslate is a medium Python project (~11k lines across 34 code files, plus 10 test files). Setup is light: installs like a normal app. Reading the code is optional. Last commit this month, AGPL-3.0 license, has a test suite.

Size

Medium codebase

~11k lines · 34 code files · ~1 h to skim

Setup

One-command install

Installs like a normal app. Reading the code is optional.

Runs on

Python · Docker

No API keys detected

Python 74%HTML 11%Dockerfile 6%CSS 6%Shell 3%

Where to start reading

1
README.md
Start here — what it does and how to install it
2
AGENTS.md
The instructions the AI actually follows
3
main.py
Where the program starts running
4
pyproject.toml
Dependencies and the commands it exposes
5
libretranslate/__init__.py
Inside libretranslate/ — the main logic begins here