What's your experience with Polylang in ClassicPress?

Projects Localization
1

I’d like to read from anyone using Polylang, there’s mention it works with ClassicPress and I’d love to share about its setup and quirks, if any.
I am moving a site from qTranslate-X AND WordPress so I’d love to know more about this plugin whenused with CP.

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2

@ElisabettaCarrara might have experience of this.

3

Usually I advise AGAINST using translation plugins.

This because:

  • they don’t really translate for you and if they do they use obsolete systems to do so like “word for word” and basically ruin your site
  • some of the sites I made are based on a multi site structure where the customer provided each translated content (human translated).
  • if the site is simple you can solve the issue with ACF custom fields creating a group for every language and showing it conditionally (I have seen this implemented but not done it myself)
  • I am wary of sites that use the old system (flags for every conceivable country and then Mars) because having many languages handled by a localization plugin if not optimized correctly slows site down. If the site isn’t Amazon you might be good just serving it in a few selected languages based on the actual origin of the traffic you are getting minus the bots and Nigerian scammers.

All the above is from my translator perspective.

Regarding how Polylang works with CP I am going to test it together with some other and see if it works.

When I am at my laptop this evening I will also recommend a solution you can use if you are in the EU that is really more suitable IMHO because it uses a set of large language models and it’s really accurate.

4

My question had nothing to do with content translation - apologies if this wasn’t clear.

I am asking about compatibility. Polylang’s approach is elegant because it avoids creating new tables or altering core WordPress behavior. Instead, it builds on existing structures, making it compatible and performant.

There is a pro option to have content translated, I have no use for that.

5

“[B]uilding on existing structures” doesn’t necessarily make it “performant”. In fact, creating dedicated database tables is often both much more efficient and much faster, especially if that approach avoids searching via one of the metadata tables.

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6

Elisabetta, let me correct you right there. That is not what Polylang is - it works the same as WPML. It is not an automatic translation plugin.

You still have to enter all the text into the language fields. In the case of our client they gave us all the copy translated from English to french, and we added that into the site for them.

We didn’t see any significant change in performance between languages. That’s because we cached the entire site with WP Super Cache, so it made no difference really. We didn’t see a drastic lag either from the plugin - but it was necessary for the project. So that is the trade off.

@MagicFab it probably will work. just install it on a staging site and test it out… much better plugin than WPML.

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