If you are looking to make your WordPress multilingual, these two names always appear. And almost all comparisons treat them as if they were two versions of the same thing. They are not: they work opposite of each other, and choosing well depends on a single question: who is going to write the translations.
The short answer
Polylang it does not translate: it organizes. It creates a copy of each content per language and links them. It has a truly free version and is lightweight. If no one on your team is going to write in English, Polylang alone won't work for you.
WPML yes, it translates: it includes a translation manager, integrated automatic translation and a circuit to send jobs to translators or agencies. It does not have a free version and is heavier.
Comparison, with today's data
| Polylang | WPML | |
|---|---|---|
| Free version | Yes, in the official repository | Does not exist |
| Active installations | 800.000 | Does not publish the data: it's not on wordpress.org |
| Rating on wordpress.org | 4.7 out of 5 with 2,991 votes | — |
| Starting price | 99 € per year (1 site) | 39 € per year (Blog plan) |
| Regular plan | 99 € per year | 99 € per year (CMS plan, 3 sites) |
| Higher plan | 495 € per year (25 sites) | 199 € per year (unlimited sites) |
| Renewal | 50% discount | One year of updates and support |
| Automatic translation | DeepL, with your own API key | Integrated, paid for by credits separately |
| WooCommerce | Separate paid add-on | Included from the CMS plan |
| Architecture | Native WordPress taxonomy | Own tables in the database |
| Multisite | Yes | Yes |
The fundamental difference: duplicating versus translating
Polylang it relies on what WordPress already knows how to do. It declares the language as just another taxonomy and, from there, each entry has its twin in another language and you link them. There's no magic, and that's its virtue: the database remains a normal WordPress database, and if tomorrow you uninstall the plugin your content is still there, each piece in its own language.
The cost of that cleanliness is that someone has to write the content. Polylang gives you the rails; you provide the train.
WPML it does the opposite: it sets up its own translation layer with its own tables and, on top of that, builds a manager: who translates what, what state each piece is in, what is sent out. That's why it covers scenarios that Polylang alone doesn't cover, such as sending three hundred articles to an agency, reviewing them with an approval workflow and having WooCommerce, ACF, and your page builder follow along without you touching anything.
The cost of that is a dense initial configuration and one more layer between WordPress and you.
Automatic translation: where the purchase is decided
This is where most comparisons fall short, and it's what really changes your day-to-day.
Polylang Pro it connects with DeepL, but with your own API key. That means one more account to open, one more invoice to monitor and a character consumption that you control. In return, you pay DeepL the DeepL price, without an intermediary.
WPML it brings it within its advanced translation editor and charges for it by credits, apart from the license. It's more comfortable and less transparent: the annual plan does not include translating, it includes being able to translate.
And one thing worth knowing before buying either of the two: neither translates the entire site in one sitting by default. You go piece by piece or launch batch jobs. If your expectation is "I press a button and tomorrow it's in English", neither of the two fulfills that expectation as is.
What it really costs in three years
The price of the first invoice is misleading. Over three years, for a single site:
- Polylang Pro: 99 € the first year and 49.50 € the next two, thanks to the 50% renewal. Total 198 €, plus what you spend on DeepL.
- WPML Blog: 39 € per year. Total 117 €, but this plan falls short as soon as WooCommerce or custom fields appear.
- WPML CMS: 99 € per year. Total 297 €, plus automatic translation credits.
None of this makes one expensive and the other cheap. What makes a license expensive is paying for it for three years to use 20%.
WooCommerce
If you sell, this outweighs everything else. WPML includes the WooCommerce part from the CMS plan and is the most established integration on the market: products, variations, attributes, gateway, and emails. Polylang requires a separate paid add-on, which works well but is another license and another renewal.
Translating a store is not translating texts: it's translating attributes, product slugs, transactional emails, and order statuses. Expect to dedicate time to that with either of the two.
Performance
Polylang is lighter, and that's not an opinion: by relying on native taxonomy, it adds much less machinery. WPML has improved a lot in recent years, but it still builds its own layer, and on large sites with many languages, that shows in database queries.
That said: if your website is slow to load, the language plugin is almost never the main cause. Look at the images and hosting first.
Compatibility with the rest of your site
WPML wins here, and it's not even close. It's been around since 2009 and has a compatibility program where theme and plugin developers certify that their product works with it. If your website is loaded with unusual plugins, WPML will give you fewer scares.
Polylang covers the big things well (common page builders, ACF, Yoast) and its community of 800,000 active installations means that almost any problem is already written about in some forum.
So, which one do I choose?
- Choose Polylang if each language is going to have its own hand-written content, if the budget dictates, or if you want to start for free and decide later. Also if you care that your database remains standard.
- Choose WPML if you have a store, if you are going to outsource translations, if your website depends on many third-party plugins, or if you need a workflow with several people and review statuses.
- Don't choose by the first year's price. Choose who it will write for, because that doesn't change but the license does.
There is a third way to do it
The two plugins above start from the same idea: that translation is a job someone does piece by piece. Polylang gives you the structure and WPML also gives you the manager, but in both cases the site is translated when someone has finished translating it.
WP-Translate part of the opposite idea: that the site is translated today and polished later. You launch the automatic translation of the entire site at once, the plugin marks each piece as pending review, and you correct on the website itself what is seen and what sells, without entering a manager.
It is one-time payment (89 €, 169 € or 289 € depending on the number of sites, with a lifetime license) instead of an annual subscription, and it brings several AI engines without you having to open an account in any of them. It is not better than WPML for an agency with in-house translators, nor does it replace Polylang if each language has different content. It is another answer to the same question, for those who want to be translated now.
You can try it for free before deciding anything.
Frequently asked questions
Can I switch from Polylang to WPML, or vice versa?
Yes, and there are migration tools in both directions. But expect to review the result: internal links, slugs, and menus almost never survive intact.
Is Polylang's free version suitable for a small website?
For a site with few pages where you write each language yourself, yes. It falls short as soon as you want to translate URL slugs or duplicate content from one language to another.
Does WPML have a free trial?
There is no free version, but there is a thirty-day money-back guarantee. In practice, that is the trial.
Which one is better for SEO?
Both do the important thing well: one URL per language and the correct hreflang tags. Multilingual SEO is almost always lost elsewhere (half-translated content, or a sitemap that doesn't declare the languages), not because of which of the two plugins you use.