Argos Translate¶
Summary¶
An open-source neural machine translation library that powers LibreTranslate. Based on OpenNMT, it provides offline-capable translation between language pairs without relying on proprietary APIs.
How It Works¶
- Based on OpenNMT — Open-source neural machine translation framework
- Language packages — Installed separately for each language pair
- Community models — Translation models contributed by the community
- Custom training — Can train custom models with Argos Train and Locomotive
Role in LibreTranslate¶
LibreTranslate is essentially a Flask API wrapper around Argos Translate: - Argos Translate handles the actual translation - LibreTranslate adds API endpoints, rate limiting, authentication, web UI - Language models are stored on disk and loaded at startup
Comparison with Cloud MT¶
| Argos Translate | Google/Azure/DeepL | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free (compute cost) | Per-character pricing |
| Privacy | Full data control | Data sent to third party |
| Offline | Yes | No |
| Quality | Good (improving) | Best-in-class |
| Languages | Limited (community models) | 100+ languages |
| Setup | Download model package | API key |
See Also¶
libretranslate- Machine Translation
- Self Hosted Mt