Free and Open Source Machine Translation API, entirely self-hosted. Unlike other APIs, it doesn't rely on proprietary providers such as Google or Azure to perform translations. Instead, its translation engine is powered by the open source [Argos Translate][argo] library.
If you want to run the Docker image in a complete offline environment, you need to add the `--build-arg with_models=true` parameter. Then the language models get downloaded during the build process of the image. Otherwise these models get downloaded on the first run of the image/container.
> Feel free to change the [`docker-compose.yml`](https://github.com/LibreTranslate/LibreTranslate/blob/main/docker-compose.yml) file to adapt it to your deployment needs, or use an extra `docker-compose.prod.yml` file for your deployment configuration.
| --api-keys | Enable API keys database for per-user rate limits lookup | `Don't use API keys` | LT_API_KEYS |
| --require-api-key-origin | Require use of an API key for programmatic access to the API, unless the request origin matches this domain | `No restrictions on domain origin` | LT_REQUIRE_API_KEY_ORIGIN |
| --load-only | Set available languages | `all from argostranslate` | LT_LOAD_ONLY |
Note that each argument has an equivalent env. variable that can be used instead. The env. variables overwrite the default values but have lower priority than the command aguments. They are particularly useful if used with Docker. Their name is the upper-snake case of the command arguments' ones, with a `LT` prefix.
LibreTranslate supports per-user limit quotas, e.g. you can issue API keys to users so that they can enjoy higher requests limits per minute (if you also set `--req-limit`). By default all users are rate-limited based on `--req-limit`, but passing an optional `api_key` parameter to the REST endpoints allows a user to enjoy higher request limits.
To use API keys simply start LibreTranslate with the `--api-keys` option.
### Add New Keys
To issue a new API key with 120 requests per minute limits:
You can use this [discourse translator plugin](https://github.com/LibreTranslate/discourse-translator) to translate [Discourse](https://discourse.org) topics. To install it simply modify `/var/discourse/containers/app.yml`:
Then issue `./launcher rebuild app`. From the Discourse's admin panel then select "LibreTranslate" as a translation provider and set the relevant endpoint configurations.
- [LibreTranslater](https://gitlab.com/BeowuIf/libretranslater) is an Android app available on the Play Store (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.beowulf.libretranslater) and in F-Droid store (https://f-droid.org/packages/de.beowulf.libretranslater/) that uses the LibreTranslate API.
- [minbrowser](https://minbrowser.org/) is a web browser with [integrated LibreTranslate support](https://github.com/argosopentech/argos-translate/discussions/158#discussioncomment-1141551).
This is a list of online resources that serve the LibreTranslate API. Some require an API key. If you want to add a new URL, please open a pull request.
To add new languages you first need to train an Argos Translate model. See [this video](https://odysee.com/@argosopentech:7/training-an-Argos-Translate-model-tutorial-2022:2?r=DMnK7NqdPNHRCfwhmKY9LPow3PqVUUgw) for details.
In short, no. [You need to buy an API key](https://buy.stripe.com/28obLvdgGcIE5AQfYY). You can always run LibreTranslate for free on your own server of course.
### Can I use this behind a reverse proxy, like Apache2?
Yes, here is an example Apache2 config that redirects a subdomain (with HTTPS certificate) to LibreTranslate running on a docker at localhost.
```
sudo docker run -ti --rm -p 127.0.0.1:5000:5000 libretranslate/libretranslate
```
You can remove `127.0.0.1` on the above command if you want to be able to access it from `domain.tld:5000`, in addition to `subdomain.domain.tld` (this can be helpful to determine if there is an issue with Apache2 or the docker container).
Add `--restart unless-stopped` if you want this docker to start on boot, unless manually stopped.
To get a HTTPS subdomain certificate, install `certbot` (snap), run `sudo certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges dns` and enter your information (with `subdomain.domain.tld` as the domain). Add a DNS TXT record with your domain registrar when asked. This will save your certificate and key to `/etc/letsencrypt/live/{subdomain.domain.tld}/`. Alternatively, comment the SSL lines out if you don't want to use HTTPS.
