DeepL Translator
Shares rank 3 of 4 translation services by recommenders
People recommend DeepL for translations that sound closer to natural phrasing than Google Translate. Critics say it now makes text more formal and its free tier has limits.
21 people recommended DeepL Translator in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 34 comments.
38 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- mixed feelings
- 4
- warn against or regret it
- 13
The record
Recommended in 11 of 12 months
In 20 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 11 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 20 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 10% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 34 of the 40 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Better translation quality than rivals
“In terms of translation quality, it's still DeepL > Google > Apple”
Comment from 18 Dec 2025 in “After ruining a treasured water resource, Iran is drying up” “it's way better than Google Translate for many languages”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered” “IMHO it is the best translation model out there”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Can Europe train a frontier AI model on the compute it owns?” - Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Tell HN: DeepL Moving Data to AWS”
- Comment from 20 Nov 2025 in “AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power”
Dedicated translator, not a chatbot
“using a literal translator (e.g: Google Translate, DeepL) will ensure we get to hear what you have to say”
Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Launch HN: Terminal Use (YC W26) – Vercel for filesystem-based agents” “DeepL should be perfect to do it, because is model is dedicated for translations”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all” “There's a big difference between running your input through DeepL and asking”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left” Closer to natural phrasing
“Why not use a dedicated translator such as DeepL, which will not only save you tokens/energy…”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all” “I find Deepl does a much better job at capturing the direct translation of what I’m saying”
Comment from 30 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Open-source engine running Gemma 4 26B in 2 GB RAM on any M-series Mac”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Quality seems to have declined
“which is likely why it seems to hallucinate a lot more now”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Grammarly will send unhinged messages to all your users if you try to cancel” “it can not do any good translation service at all”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Grammarly will send unhinged messages to all your users if you try to cancel” “I do remember trying DEEPL without much success.”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Mistral OCR 3” Output sounds formal and LLM-like
“Now it always makes the translation more formal, "professional", and gives everything the "LLM voice”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Audio transcription is worse in 2026 than it was in 2016” “most sentences become flat and end up being judged as GenAI”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “crustc: entirety of `rustc`, translated to C” Web tab heats laptop, uses CPU
“left their main page open and left my laptop for an hour, only to come back to it being steaming hot”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “LinkedIn uses 2.4 GB RAM across two tabs” “your CPU lifts off while the tab is in the foreground”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “LinkedIn uses 2.4 GB RAM across two tabs” Free tier limits and usage blocks
“i used it to much so i would be blocked for 18 days”
Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all” “DeepL's limit is now only 500 words.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left”
Other translation services people recommend
The three most recommended other translation services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi Translate | 45 | 3 | 23 | 66% | 6 | — | — |
| Google Translate | 40 | 20 | 61 | 40% | 12 | — | — |
| DeepL TranslatorThis page | 21 | 4 | 13 | 62% | 11 | — | — |
| Firefox Translations | 21 | 5 | 4 | 84% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
34 of the 40 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I also like to run the translation back through DeepL for a more traditional technology read on it”
“which is likely why it seems to hallucinate a lot more now”
“it can not do any good translation service at all”
“Engines like Deepl do give very good results on some single sentences.”
“I find Deepl does a much better job at capturing the direct translation of what I’m saying”
“i believe that the big ones, bing, google, even deepl are all using AI to translate”
“This UI lets an expert guide and control the output of the tool, instead of having to fight it.”
“she said it's the only one where she can use the result and make some improvements”
“most sentences become flat and end up being judged as GenAI”
“Pretty good; I couldn't have done it better, I suppose.”
“failed immediately as 'lang:en' when to 'long:en' and it just kept going”
“IMHO it is the best translation model out there”
“DeepL's limit is now only 500 words.”
“There's a big difference between running your input through DeepL and asking”
“it's way better than Google Translate for many languages”
“Now it always makes the translation more formal, "professional", and gives everything the "LLM voice”
“their native document translation features often completely break the formatting in complex PDFs”
“Even DeepL was able to swap between them.”
“Their appeal is quality of translations.”
“Their main appeal was that they were EU based. Now not even that”
“left their main page open and left my laptop for an hour, only to come back to it being steaming hot”
“your CPU lifts off while the tab is in the foreground”
“i used it to much so i would be blocked for 18 days”
“DeepL should be perfect to do it, because is model is dedicated for translations”
“Why not use a dedicated translator such as DeepL, which will not only save you tokens/energy…”
“they at least aren't slop cannons”
“using a literal translator (e.g: Google Translate, DeepL) will ensure we get to hear what you have to say”
“She's forever cleaning up after the mess it left people in.”
“I do remember trying DEEPL without much success.”
“In terms of translation quality, it's still DeepL > Google > Apple”
“it still isn't when you compare it to DeepL or Kagi”
“they make excellent translations”
“Grammarly and DeepL are great examples of successful AI products”
“things got a little bit better with DeepL”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.