Kobold vs Weglot

Weglot is a translation service for websites, based in Paris. It has been on the Shopify App Store since 2016, where it has 4.5 stars from 830 reviews and supports more than 110 languages ^[2]. It isn't tied to Shopify: Weglot says it “is compatible with all website technologies”, and lists WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace and many more ^[18]. On its Shopify page it says it's used by 25k stores and more than 110k users ^[16].

Weglot stores the text it translates, and the translations, in its own cloud. It serves them on your storefront through a script, or through its own server when you want translated URLs such as /fr/ that search engines can read ^[7][8].

Kobold (usekobold.com) is a web app for Shopify. Its agents make theme code changes and translate your theme and store content into the languages you've added in Shopify. Each translation is written to Shopify as one of its own translations ^[23]. Kobold connects through a Shopify app that asks for nine permissions: two for your theme, three for translations, two read-only ones for auto-translate (which also read product, collection, page and blog post metafields) and two read-only ones for metaobjects ^[25]:

• read_themes
• write_themes
• read_translations
• write_translations
• read_locales
• read_products
• read_content
• read_metaobjects
• read_metaobject_definitions

Kobold doesn't ask for orders, customers, payments or analytics. It can't create or edit products, prices, discounts or orders: it only adds translations next to your original text ^[25].

Weglot keeps your translations in its cloud database and adds them to each page as it's served ^[7]. With translated subfolders, your domain's DNS points at Weglot and “translations are made server-side on a dedicated URL” ^[8].

If you cancel or pause, Weglot's help center says “your translations won't appear and your translated pages will be progressively removed from search engines (such as Google)”. The account drops to the Free plan, and the project is deleted after 3 months without activity ^[5].

You cancel under Billing in the Weglot dashboard ^[5]. Removing the Shopify app doesn't cancel the subscription by itself: 1-star reviews from December 2025 and May 2026 describe being charged after uninstalling, and Weglot's replies confirm the subscription has to be cancelled separately ^[19].

Kobold writes each translation into Shopify, where the Shopify admin and Translate & Adapt keep theirs. Your storefront serves them like any other Shopify translation, and Kobold isn't in that path. If you cancel or remove Kobold, the translations stay in Shopify ^[23].

Two things end when you remove Kobold. Auto-translate turns off for every language ^[23]. Undo ends too, because Kobold's saved copies of your earlier text are deleted with your store's data.

Not side by side. Weglot's guide for Shopify Markets says “Unpublish any additional languages, then delete them”, because “Shopify's native languages use the Shopify Translation API, which can conflict with Weglot's rendering and routing” ^[6]. Its migration guide says to export your Shopify translations as a CSV and remove the Translate & Adapt languages before you turn Weglot on. Weglot can import that CSV ^[17], and its pricing page lists export and import from the Advanced plan ^[1].

Setup is light for a script install: you click Activate in the theme editor and save ^[9]. Translated subfolders take more. You change a DNS record to point at Weglot, and with Shopify Markets you then email Weglot support so its team can apply the settings Markets needs ^[6][8].

Kobold uses the languages you've added in Shopify under Settings › Languages, published or not, and adds or removes none itself ^[23]. It fills missing translations and the ones Shopify marks as out of date. Translations made by you or by Translate & Adapt are kept unless you ask Kobold to replace them ^[23].

You can keep Translate & Adapt installed. If its automatic translation is also on for a language, both would translate the same text, so turn one of them off for that language ^[23].

Weglot sizes its plans by translated words: source words × languages. Its own example is 8,000 words in 3 languages, which is about 24,000 translated words, SEO text included ^[3]. It's a stored total, not a monthly allowance. Translations stay in your account until you delete them, so the plan has to cover every word stored ^[4]. Weglot's help center adds that “all words that have been translated at least one time on your website are taken into account” ^[3]. The pricing page says “a translated word is only counted once and not each time it's translated” ^[1].

When you go over, Weglot emails you. With auto-upgrade on, you move to the next plan. Otherwise “the translations will be discontinued until you upgrade your plan or delete the extra translations” ^[1]. The plans, with monthly and yearly prices ^[1]:

• Free, €0

  2,000 words, 1 language ^[1].

• Starter, €15 a month (€150 a year)

  10,000 words, 1 language ^[1].

• Business, €29 a month (€290 a year)

  50,000 words, 3 languages ^[1].

• Pro, €79 a month (€790 a year)

  200,000 words, 5 languages. Adds translated URLs and statistics ^[1].

• Advanced, €299 a month (€2,990 a year)

  1,000,000 words, 10 languages. Adds formal or informal tone, custom languages, and export and import ^[1].

• Extended, €699 a month (€6,990 a year)

  5,000,000 words, 20 languages. Adds translation memory and a domain per language ^[1].

Each plan also caps monthly translation requests, which Weglot says are about equal to translated page views: 50,000 on Business, 200,000 on Pro and 1,000,000 on Advanced ^[1]. Weglot charges in euros. Its dollar prices ($17, $32, $87, $329 and $769 a month) are estimates based on the exchange rate on the day you subscribe, and VAT is extra ^[1]. The Shopify App Store listing shows only Free to Pro, and says “External charges may be billed by Weglot separately from your Shopify invoice” ^[2]. Weglot has a 14-day free trial with no card needed ^[1].

Kobold charges 12 credits per 1,000 source words per language, counted on your original text. A 250-word product description into German and French is 500 words, so 6 credits ^[23]. Only visible text counts: HTML, Liquid and placeholders don't, and a draft that has to be redone isn't charged again ^[23]. Runs you start yourself also include Moss's checks, charged like other QA ^[24].

Credits come from your plan's monthly pool, the same pool theme work uses. They reset each month and don't roll over ^[24]. Plans don't cap words or languages: you pay for what's translated, and text that doesn't change isn't translated again. Billing is in US dollars, through Stripe.

Weglot translates the text in your page's source: theme text, products, SEO text and more. Text that loads later, such as recently viewed products, side carts and third-party reviews or pop-ups, needs a “dynamic rule” with a CSS selector ^[11]. That reach is a real strength: app widgets that keep their text outside Shopify's translatable content can be translated too.

Checkout belongs to Shopify. Weglot passes the visitor's language to Shopify, and with subfolder or subdomain setups some checkout text, such as product names in the summary or shipping methods, can stay untranslated. Weglot suggests contacting its support for other options in that case ^[10]. Weglot's listing names metafield translation. As a page-level service, it translates metafield text as it appears on your storefront, and keeps it in Weglot rather than in Shopify ^[2][7].

Kobold translates four areas ^[23]:

• Theme text

  Buttons, labels and cart text from your theme's language files ^[23].

• Theme content

  Text you typed into sections and theme settings ^[23].

• Store content

  Products, collections, pages, blog posts, menus and image alt text ^[23].

• Metafields

  The metafield and metaobject fields you tick, field by field, off until you turn it on ^[23].

Kobold never translates tags, checkout and email notifications, payment and delivery names, or market-specific translations. It translates URL handles and shop policies only when you ask, and you approve each policy on its own ^[23]. Theme settings the theme matches on, like swatch or option names, colour names, links and style settings, are never translated. Translating “Color” in a swatch setting would stop it matching your products' Color option ^[23].

Metafields are opt-in in Kobold. You tick the fields that hold copy, like care instructions or FAQ answers, and Kobold stores their translations in Shopify like the rest. JSON fields get only their text values translated, URL, file, number and reference fields never are, and app fields start off ^[23].

When you start a translation, nothing goes live until someone approves it ^[23]:

• Sample of 10

  Nib translates 10 strings per language first. You approve, edit or reject each one, and your choices guide the rest.

• Format checks

  Placeholders, links, emails and phone numbers must match the original, no new numbers may appear, the HTML must stay intact and every plural form must be there. A translation that fails can't be approved until it's fixed.

• Glossary and brand voice

  Names you keep as they are and words you always translate the same way. Kobold also drafts in your store's voice, from what it knows about your brand.

• Review table

  The original, the current translation and Kobold's draft side by side. Filter, search, approve all or some.

• Fit on the page

  Moss opens the preview in each language and flags text that overflows, gets cut off or is still in the original language.

• Theme copy first

  Theme text and theme content go on a copy of your theme, so you can preview each language before anything goes live.

• Undo for 30 days

  Puts back the translations you had before, except ones someone changed since.

Each language you've added gets a card, with its flag, on the Translations page. It shows how much is translated and how many strings are missing or out of date ^[23].

Weglot picks a machine translation engine for each language pair ^[12]. Every plan includes glossary rules and credits for Weglot's AI Language Model, which learns from your glossary and edits. One credit translates one word, and credits are spent “immediately, even if you discard the result” ^[1][12][13].

You edit translations in a list in the dashboard, or in the Visual Editor, which works on “a preview copy of your website”. A Chrome extension, in beta, lets you edit on the live site ^[15]. Formal or informal tone starts at Advanced. Translation memory, which reuses your manual edits on matching new text, starts at Extended, at €699 a month ^[1]. On paid plans you can also order professional translation from the dashboard, from €0.13 a word ^[1][14].

Weglot translates a page when someone visits it in a language, whether that's a customer, you or a search engine, rather than all at once ^[4]. New and changed text is picked up the same way, and adds to the stored total your plan has to cover ^[3][4].

Auto-translate keeps a language up to date. It's off by default and set per language by an owner. A language qualifies once a translation you started for it, with store or theme content, has gone live. It handles only what changes after you turn it on; text that was already missing stays with Translate missing ^[23]:

• Apply automatically or hold for review

  Apply adds each translation that passes the checks as soon as it's ready. Hold keeps the drafts for someone to approve, with one email a day ^[23].

• When it runs

  Kobold sees product and collection changes right away, pages, blog posts and theme content within the hour, and menus overnight. It then waits 30 minutes so a burst of edits becomes one batch, or runs once a day at 03:00 in your store's timezone ^[23].

• What it covers

  Store content, theme content and the metafields you chose. Theme text, shop policies and URL handles are never auto-translated: use Translate missing for theme text ^[23].

• Large changes wait

  A batch over 20,000 words across its languages is held for review even in Apply automatically, and the owners are emailed ^[23].

• Credits and limits

  The same 12 credits per 1,000 words per language, with no checks fee. You can set a monthly limit per store, and it pauses when credits run out ^[23].

One honest trade-off: in Apply automatically, a translation that passes the checks goes live without anyone reading it, and Moss doesn't check how it fits on the page. Theme content goes straight to your live theme, not to a copy, though Kobold saves what was there so you can undo it. Look at the language on your store now and then, or use Hold for my review where that matters ^[23].