LibreTranslate

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## LibreTranslate - Your Own Translation API, Working on First Boot

LibreTranslate is a free and open source machine translation engine you run yourself. It exposes a simple REST API and a small web interface, translating entirely on the instance so the text you submit never leaves infrastructure you control. This image delivers it fully installed behind nginx over HTTPS, with the neural models already on disk. A working translation service answers requests minutes after launch with no Python packaging, no model download, and no reverse proxy configuration.

## Nine Languages, Offline, With No GPU

The offline Argos Translate neural models for Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish are baked into the image, covering all seventy two directional pairs across those nine languages. Translation works with the instance fully isolated from the internet. This is a deliberate subset, not the whole catalogue: the complete upstream model set is one hundred packages and several further gigabytes. The user guide shows how to add any further language, and the model volume is sized so the entire upstream set fits without touching the operating system disk. The engine runs on CPU only and does not provide GPU acceleration.

## Secured By Default, With No Shared Credential

An open translation endpoint on the public internet is a compute abuse risk, so this image ships with API key enforcement switched on. Every translation request needs a key, including requests made from the web interface, where you paste the key once. No usable key is baked into the image. On first boot the instance generates its own random API key and writes it to a file readable only by root, and it also generates its own self signed TLS certificate, so no two instances share a key or a private key. Requests are served over HTTPS on port 443 from the very first call, which matters because the API key travels in the request body. Port 80 answers a plain liveness check and redirects everything else to HTTPS. LibreTranslate itself binds only to the loopback interface, with nginx as the sole public listener, and request rate and character limits bound abuse.

## Separate, Resizable Storage Volumes

The neural model store and the application runtime each live on their own dedicated storage volume, independently resizable and separate from the operating system disk, so you can grow the model library without rebuilding the instance.

## What This Is, And What It Is Not

This is a machine translation engine. It produces automatic translations suitable for understanding content, powering search, pre translating a content pipeline or serving in product features where an automatic translation is appropriate. It is not human translation and it is not certified or sworn translation, and output should be reviewed by a competent speaker before it is relied upon in a legal, medical or safety context.

## Use Cases

• Data residency and privacy: translate customer text, support tickets or documents without sending them to a third party translation service.
• Cost predictable bulk translation: pre translate a content catalogue or a document corpus at a flat instance price rather than per character.
• Air gapped and restricted networks: run translation inside a VPC with no internet egress at all.

## Get Started

Browse to the instance address over HTTPS, read your generated API key from the root only file on the instance, paste it into the web interface or pass it as the api_key field on a POST to /translate, and you have a working translation endpoint. The paired cloudimg deploy guide covers launch, the first authenticated call, adding languages, enabling additional API keys and replacing the self signed certificate.

## cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and live chat. Our engineers help with deployment, API key management, adding and loading further language models, TLS certificates and custom domains, reverse proxy and rate limit tuning, and sizing for throughput.

## Licensing

LibreTranslate is licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0 and the complete corresponding source of the installed version is shipped on the instance. The Argos Translate library is separately dual licensed MIT or CC0. The Argos model packages are distributed by the Argos Open Tech project and a manifest identifying every model package installed is written onto the instance. All product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Use of them does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by them.