Multilingual WordPress: Different Methods

Translating WordPress sites to different languages can be done by using a WordPress plugin, utilizing a WordPress Network installation (also known as a multisite).

Plugin is the best option when the different languages are translated from the orginal articles, pages and menu items. This means that your site stays basically the same in every language, the language only changes.

Different plugins offer different features and functions. For example some of the multilingual plugins offer support for domain mapping for different languages whereas some don't. It is recommended to find out all the features of the plugin to find out which is the right one! It's a good idea to make a conscious decision, as switching from a plugin to another afterwards may be tricky once the site has been translated with one plugin.

Traditionally the most popular plugin for implementing multilingual WordPress has been WPML. This is mostly because WPML was the first multilinguality plugin and it quickly became well-known and largely used. WPML works at Seravo and it can be used if desired.

However, we recommend getting familiar with newer and lesser-known alternative called Polylang, which we find simply better than WPML. Every simple task that is needed in multilingual WordPress site can be achieved with it's open source free edition. For advanced needs Polylang offers paid Polylang Pro.

Compared to WPML, Polylang's codebase is newer and lighter, which is why it runs more reliably and quickly. In WordPress speed tests conducted by Seravo, WPML has been the root cause to the slowness quite often. Many WP developers have got tired of the little problems that haunt WPML and Polylang's popularity is soon getting ahead of WPML in Finland. Polylang is advancing quickly because it's codebase is open source, while the makers of WPML don't accept enhancements to their code from other developers or cooperate with the community in the spirit of open source.

There's an article about how to move from WPML to Polylang in Seravo's blog (in Finnish only). Alternative English quide is Polylang's How to switch from WPML to Polylang?
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There are also other alternatives, such as MultilingualPress.
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In performance profiling of WordPress sites, WPML often appears as the plugin that causes the most slowdown. More information can be found in the presentation given by Seravo staff at WordCamp Europe 2017.

Some pages that are using WPML are known to have issues with redirections. Normally WordPress will redirect the address www.example.com to example.com, if the home/siteurl values are set as such. WPML, however, bypasses this core WordPress functionality. This causes a situation that the website might be shown from both and www.example.com and example.com.

This is why the site developer has to make sure that the if the site uses WPML, it must also have a working canonical domain -redirection. Tips on how to build this functionality into PHP code can be found on our developer documentation.

WPML is also notoriously famous for being slow, as the way it loads the translations involves an excessive amount of reading thousands of files and making hundreds of database lookups.

There are also many reported issues with WPML not being fully compatible with object cache / Redis. Apparently the WPML developers don't test their code in environments that have Redis.

Some times there is a need to build a different versions of the site for different languages. In that case the structure of the different language version is so different that simple translations of the articles, pages and menu items is not possible. In that case the WordPress network (multisite) installation is a better option than plugin.

In network installation you can create a different sites on the same WordPress installation. You can create a different language versions on subdomains or subdirectories. It is also possible to map different domain to each site.

WooCommerce products are the same as posts on WordPress site. The best option usually is to use a plugin, especially if the products are the same on different languages and all orders should be in one place.

If there is a need to separate all products and stock for different languages, then the network installation might be a better option. This way there will be separate e-commerce stores as well as WooCommerce setups on different sites (and languages).

Sometimes there might be a need to translate a plugin. It is recommended first to check out if there is an update available that includes the needed translations. Some multilingual plugins can also translate plugins.

Default language for the WordPress dashboard can be changed in the menu Settings > General > Site Language:

This language will be the default language for all users.

Users can also choose their preferred language in Users > Your Profile > Language.