Webflow Localization vs Weglot: An Expert's Review (2024)

Businesses looking to expand their reach need to offer localized experiences to resonate with diverse audiences. 

For Webflow users, the two most popular solutions for creating multilingual websites are Webflow Localization and Weglot. 

In this article, I'll compare these options, diving into their features, pros, and cons to help you choose the best tool for your needs. Whether you're focused on design control or need a quick and scalable solution, this review will guide you through the decision-making process.

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What Is Webflow Localization?

Webflow Localization is a built-in feature that allows you to customize and manage different language versions of your website within the Webflow platform. It is designed to help you create a seamless, localized experience for users around the world, directly within the Webflow Designer.

Webflow’s localization feature enables you to manage multiple languages and regions for your website in a streamlined way. Here’s how it works:

• Locale customization: Webflow allows you to create and manage different locales (language versions) for your site. You can customize content, layouts, and SEO settings for each locale, ensuring that your site is tailored to the needs and preferences of different audiences.
• Translation management: You can translate content within Webflow, giving you control over the quality and accuracy of the translations. Alternatively, you can integrate third-party translation services to automate this process.
• SEO optimized: Webflow’s localization features are SEO-friendly, allowing you to manage meta tags, hreflang attributes, and other SEO settings for each locale, helping you drive global traffic.
• Seamless integration: The localization feature integrates seamlessly with the rest of Webflow’s tools, allowing you to manage everything from within a single platform. This includes design, content management, and localization.

Webflow Localization Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Fully integrated with Webflow’s platform, simplifying the process of managing a multilingual site.
• You can customize the design and SEO settings for each locale.
• User-friendly, especially for those already familiar with Webflow.

Cons:

• Not included in the standard plans and requires an extra paid subscription.
• You can only translate one page section at a time
• Fewer automated features, requiring more hands-on management.

What Is Weglot?

Weglot is a powerful third-party localization tool that integrates seamlessly with Webflow, enabling you to quickly translate and manage multiple language versions of your website. Weglot is designed to make website localization simple, efficient, and accessible to both technical and non-technical users.

Weglot functions as an add-on to Webflow, providing a streamlined solution for website translation and localization. Here’s how it integrates with Webflow:

• Automatic translation: Weglot automatically detects the content on your Webflow site and translates it into the desired languages. The translations are instant and can be manually edited to ensure accuracy and tone.
• Language management: Weglot allows you to manage all your translations from a single dashboard. You can add, edit, and remove translations as needed, making it easy to keep your multilingual site up to date.
• SEO optimization: Weglot automatically creates SEO-friendly URLs for each language version of your site. It also manages hreflang tags, meta titles, and descriptions to ensure your site is optimized for search engines in different regions.
• Language switcher: Weglot includes a customizable language switcher that you can easily integrate into your Webflow site. This allows users to navigate between different language versions with a simple click.

Weglot Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Integration with Webflow is easy and fast.
• Instant translations can reduce the time and effort required to localize your website.
• Automatically handles SEO aspects for each language.
• Centralized dashboard for managing translations and monitoring the performance of your multilingual site.

Cons:

• The subscription model can become costly over time for large websites with multiple languages.
• While automatic translation is convenient, it may not always be accurate, requiring manual review.
• Compared to native solutions like Webflow Localization, Weglot offers less control over the design of individual language versions. It focuses more on translation and management.

Ease of Use: Localization vs Weglot

Both Localization and Weglot have some learning curve, but I’d say both are ultimately easy to master once you get comfortable using them.

Webflow Localization Ease of Use

Webflow Localization integrates directly into the Webflow Designer, making it a convenient option for users already familiar with Webflow’s interface. 

This seamless integration allows experienced Webflow users to easily switch between different locales and make edits directly within Designer. The process of managing multiple languages is intuitive for those who are comfortable with Webflow’s tools and workflows.

However, if you are not experienced with Webflow, using the localization feature might present a steeper learning curve. 

Understanding how to navigate Designer and manage content across different locales could be challenging for beginners. This would make it somewhat more difficult to leverage the localization capabilities without prior experience. In this case, you might need help from Webflow experts.

Weglot Ease of Use

Weglot offers a personalized dashboard that operates independently of the Webflow Designer. This dashboard provides a centralized location to manage all your translations and localization settings. 

While the initial setup of Weglot may take longer—requiring configuration of DNS settings and the addition of custom code to your Webflow project—once the integration is complete, the tool becomes increasingly easier to use.

As you become more accustomed to Weglot’s interface and features, the process of managing translations and optimizing your multilingual site becomes straightforward. 

Weglot’s user-friendly dashboard and automation features help to simplify the ongoing maintenance of a multilingual site, even if the initial setup is more complex compared to Webflow’s native solution.

Translation Quality

I couldn’t make up my mind about the quality of translation for the tools, as I only know English and Serbian, the latter being a not very widespread language.

Now, from what I’ve seen, both tools need a lot of editing when translating to Serbian.

While translations from, say, English to Spanish would probably be much more accurate, it’s still not the best practice to rely 100% on Weglot or Webflow Localization for translations.

Webflow Localization Translation Quality

Webflow Localization allows you to manage and translate separate sections for each locale directly within the Webflow Designer. This gives you granular control over the content for each language version, but it also means there’s a lot more manual work involved. 

While Webflow offers automatic translation options, the process still requires significant manual input to ensure accuracy and consistency. 

It’s crucial to perform manual checks. Simply put, the technology isn't yet reliable enough to be fully trusted. 

Weglot Translation Quality

Weglot, on the other hand, automatically translates your entire website, making it a faster solution for achieving a multilingual site. 

This automated process covers everything from content to SEO elements, providing a comprehensive translation across all pages. 

However, similar to Webflow Localization, Weglot’s translations are AI-driven, which means they are not perfect. Manual reviews and adjustments are necessary to ensure the translated content is accurate and culturally appropriate. Regardless of the convenience Weglot offers, it’s important to have a language professional review the translations.

Customization Options, Design Control, and Content Management

Here’s the gist: Webflow for customization and design; Weglot for content management. Let me elaborate.

Webflow

When it comes to customization options and design control, Webflow Localization has the upper hand. 

Since it’s integrated directly into Webflow Designer, you can leverage all the powerful design features Webflow offers, giving you complete control over how each locale looks and functions. This allows for a highly tailored user experience that aligns with your brand’s design standards across different languages.

Weglot

Weglot excels in content management. 

While it may not offer the same level of design control as Webflow Localization, Weglot is a more comprehensive tool for managing multilingual content. Its centralized dashboard makes it easy to oversee and update translations across your entire website, streamlining the process of maintaining a multilingual site. 

For those prioritizing efficient content management over design flexibility, Weglot is the stronger choice.

SEO Capabilities

Webflow Localization offers more granular control over SEO settings. It is ideal for users who want to fine-tune their strategy for each locale. 

Weglot simplifies the process with automatic SEO management, which is particularly beneficial for those looking for an efficient, hands-off approach. Still, you can go granular with Weglot too, if you prefer.

Here’s a more detailed explanation:

Webflow Localization SEO Capabilities

Webflow Localization provides solid SEO capabilities by allowing you to manage SEO settings directly within the Webflow Designer for each localized version of your site. 

You can customize meta tags, URLs, and alt text for images on a per-locale basis which ensures that each language version is fully optimized for search engines. 

Additionally, Webflow’s clean code and built-in SEO tools help ensure that your site performs well in terms of speed and user experience, both of which are critical for SEO. 

However, the manual nature of Webflow Localization means that staying on top of SEO across multiple locales requires ongoing effort and attention to detail.

Weglot SEO Capabilities

Weglot takes a comprehensive approach to SEO, automatically handling many aspects of search engine optimization for each language version of your site. 

It automatically generates SEO-friendly URLs for translated pages and manages hreflang tags, which signal to search engines the relationship between your localized pages. This helps ensure that the correct language version of your site appears in search results for users in different regions. 

Weglot also manages meta titles, descriptions, and alt texts for all translated content, reducing the manual effort required to maintain SEO across multiple languages. 

However, while Weglot’s automation makes it easier to manage SEO for a multilingual site, it’s still important to review and optimize these settings to ensure they align with your specific SEO strategy and goals.

Collaboration Features

Both Webflow Localization and Weglot offer solid collaboration features, allowing multiple team members to work together on localizing content. However, their approaches to collaboration differ, especially in terms of access and security.

Webflow Localization Collaboration Features

With Webflow Localization, collaboration happens directly within the Webflow Designer. This means that anyone working on translations or locale-specific design will need full access to the Webflow Designer, which grants them control over not just the localized content but also the entire design of the site. 

While this setup enables seamless design customization, it may raise concerns for teams that want to restrict access to sensitive areas of the site.

Weglot Collaboration Features

Weglot, on the other hand, handles collaboration mainly through its dedicated platform. Team members can manage translations and review content directly in the Weglot dashboard without needing access to the Webflow Designer itself. 

This makes Weglot more secure in terms of collaboration, as it limits access to only the translation and localization elements, giving it an edge over Webflow Localization for teams concerned about design access and security.

Weglot vs Webflow Localization Pricing

Both options may not seem expensive for small sites but tend to become quite pricey if you scale.

Webflow Localization Pricing

Localization costs $9 per locale monthly, but this is for the lowest package, which allows up to 3 locales.

This package includes:

• Machine-powered translation
• CMS localization
• Static page localization
• Localized SEO

The Advanced package costs $29 per month and it includes up to 5 localization, all of the above, plus:

• Asset localization
• Localized URLs
• Automatic visitor routing

Finally, Webflow Localization also features an Enterprise, for which you need to contact the Webflow sales team to get a quote.

It includes unlimited localizations, all of the above, and:

• Style localization
• Customizable element visibility
• Enterprise scale
• Fully integrated with Webflow Enterprise

Weglot Pricing

Now, Weglot’s pricing is much more nuanced than that of Localization. I will list it below, but make sure to explore it further. 

Weglot offers a tiered pricing model that accommodates various needs based on the number of words and translated languages required. Here’s a breakdown:

Free Plan:

• Cost: €0/month
• Words: 2,000 words
• Translated Languages: 1 language
• Features: AI translation, glossary, and more. Ideal for very small projects or to test the service before committing to a paid plan.

Starter Plan:

• Cost: €15/month
• Words: 10,000 words
• Translated Languages: 1 language
• Features: Media translation, auto-redirection, and more. Suitable for small websites or projects with minimal translation needs.

Business Plan:

• Cost: €29/month
• Words: 50,000 words
• Translated Languages: 3 languages
• Features: Access to professional translators, and more. This plan works well for businesses with moderate translation requirements across multiple languages.

Pro Plan:

• Cost: €79/month
• Words: 200,000 words
• Translated Languages: 5 languages
• Features: Team members, translated URLs, and more. Designed for growing businesses with significant multilingual needs.

Advanced Plan:

• Cost: €299/month
• Words: 1,000,000 words
• Translated Languages: 10 languages
• Features: Export & import, custom languages, and more. Aimed at larger businesses or websites with extensive content across several languages.

Extended Plan:

• Cost: €699/month
• Words: 5,000,000 words
• Translated Languages: 20 languages
• Features: Top-level domain, premium support, and more. This plan caters to large enterprises with extensive global reach.

Enterprise Plan:

• Pricing: Custom (Price on request)
• Features: Includes enterprise-grade security and compliance such as security assessments and SAML-based SSO, dedicated contracts with custom terms, DPA and SLA, custom reverse proxy, and wire transfer payment options. This plan is tailored for large organizations with specific security, compliance, and customization requirements.

Conclusion: Which One Should You Choose?

The answer is not straightforward. Here’s my perspective.

Choose Webflow Localization if: 

• You’re already invested in Webflow: If you’re familiar with Webflow’s Designer and prefer to keep everything within one platform, Webflow Localization is a seamless choice. It offers deep integration with Webflow’s tools, allowing you to manage your site’s design, content, and localization all in one place.
• Design control is crucial: Webflow Localization gives you full control over the design and customization of each locale. This is ideal if you need a highly tailored user experience that reflects your brand’s identity across different languages.
• You prefer manual management: While it may require more hands-on effort, Webflow Localization is perfect for those who prefer to manage translations and SEO settings manually to ensure accuracy and alignment with specific strategies.

Choose Weglot if:

• Speed and simplicity are key: If you need to get a multilingual site up and running quickly, Weglot’s automatic translation and centralized management dashboard make the process much faster and more efficient.
• You need a flexible, standalone solution: Weglot operates independently of Webflow, making it a good choice if you want a tool that can be used with other platforms in the future or if you’re planning to migrate your site to a different CMS.
• You're looking for a hands-off approach to SEO: Weglot’s automated SEO management is a significant advantage for those who want to simplify the process. Weglot automatically handles hreflang tags, SEO-friendly URLs, and other critical SEO elements, reducing the manual effort required to optimize your multilingual site.

Flow Ninja is an award-winning Webflow agency. If you need help implementing Localization or Weglot, or you just need consultation on which option is better for your business, feel free to reach out.