[kevinwu98]

Summary

Adds one head-to-head Knowledge Base article for each competitor that doesn't have a dedicated comparison yet: "General Translation vs. X: which should you use?". These sit one level below the three category comparisons in #644 and link to them.

Builds on #644, now merged. #644 was squash-merged, so this branch merges main back in. It keeps main's versions of the three parent articles, including the review fixes made before #644 merged. The diff is just the nine new articles and the parents' cross-links. The articles also match those review fixes: no competitor download counts, no claim that translation supplies each language's extra plural forms, and the parent's new "vs." title in link text.

Article	Reader intent	Public URL after merge
General Translation vs. i18next (kb/general-translation-vs-i18next.mdx, Internationalization)	A developer on react-i18next or next-i18next deciding whether to switch, or to keep i18next and let General Translation translate its JSON	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-i18next
General Translation vs. react-intl (kb/general-translation-vs-react-intl.mdx, Internationalization)	A developer with ICU defaultMessage catalogs weighing the extract and compile workflow against generated translations	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-react-intl
General Translation vs. Lingui (kb/general-translation-vs-lingui.mdx, Internationalization)	A developer who likes inline macros and PO catalogs, asking what General Translation adds	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-lingui
General Translation vs. vue-i18n (kb/general-translation-vs-vue-i18n.mdx, Internationalization)	A Vue or Nuxt developer comparing vue-i18n with gt-vue	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-vue-i18n
General Translation vs. Smartling (kb/general-translation-vs-smartling.mdx, Workflow Tools)	An engineering or localization lead evaluating Smartling	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-smartling
General Translation vs. Lokalise (kb/general-translation-vs-lokalise.mdx, Workflow Tools)	A team evaluating Lokalise for app and mobile strings	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-lokalise
General Translation vs. Phrase (kb/general-translation-vs-phrase.mdx, Workflow Tools)	A team weighing Phrase Strings and Phrase TMS	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-phrase
General Translation vs. Crowdin (kb/general-translation-vs-crowdin.mdx, Workflow Tools)	An open-source or product team evaluating Crowdin	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-crowdin
General Translation vs. Transifex (kb/general-translation-vs-transifex.mdx, Workflow Tools)	A team evaluating Transifex or Transifex Native	https://generaltranslation.com/kb/general-translation-vs-transifex

Not covered here:

• next-intl: docs(kb): compare next-intl and gt-next workflows #642 already has next-intl-vs-gt-next.
• Google Translate: its own article is in docs(kb): add comparison articles for i18n libraries, Google Translate, and TMS vendors #644.
• docs(kb): add React library comparison and launch checklist #643's roundup, "What's the best i18n library for a React app?", gives react-i18next, Lingui, and React Intl a paragraph each. These head-to-heads go deeper; drop any of them if editors see too much overlap.

How the articles are written. Each one follows the feedback on #644:

• Library articles say plainly, from the summary on, that the other library doesn't translate and General Translation does. Each credits the library's strengths, shows tested code for both sides, gives a migration path, and says when to keep the library.
• TMS articles lay out the round trip engineers still run with that vendor (keys and files, sync, wait, merge and wire up). Each credits the vendor's strengths and covers four benefits: faster, cheaper, higher quality, and lower risk. A final section says when the vendor is the better fit.
• Parent articles in docs(kb): add comparison articles for i18n libraries, Google Translate, and TMS vendors #644 now link each library and vendor name in their tables to its head-to-head article, and their related-questions lists point to the new articles.

How claims were verified

• Libraries: the npm registry (versions, licenses, and downloads for the full week of September 29, 2026, because the API's "last week" window includes a day with no recorded downloads), plus each library's official docs, changelog, and source.
• TMS vendors: each vendor's own site, docs, help center, and pricing pages, checked 2026-10-16. I re-checked the key claims in a browser:
  • Smartling's pull request mode: a pull request "should not be merged or deleted" until translations are delivered.
  • Smartling's published turnaround: instant for machine and AI translation, 1 day for AI-assisted human translation, 2 days for expert human translation.
  • Smartling's visual context: none by default for JSON, iOS, and Android files.
  • Crowdin's hourly GitHub sync.
  • Lokalise's and Phrase's 14-day trials and what their plans meter.
  • Transifex Native's SDKs and CDS: Apache-2.0 on npm and GitHub.
• General Translation: docs in this repo and the published packages (gt-react 11.4.12, gt-vue 0.1.22, gt 2.26.5).

Code examples

Ran (Node 24):

• react-i18next: the inbox in English and Spanish. A Polish catalog with only _one/_other and an English fallback renders English for 2, 5, and 22, with nothing in the debug log; i18next-cli status exits 1 on the missing forms.
• react-intl 12.1.4: the inbox in English and Spanish, plus formatjs extract output.
• Lingui 6.10.0: Babel macro, lingui extract, a hand-filled Spanish PO file, lingui compile, then render in English and Spanish.
• vue-i18n 11.4.14: the inbox in English and Spanish. With the default rule, Polish renders the wrong forms for 1, 2, and 22; it's correct with a custom pluralRules. The v12 alpha is correct with no custom rule.
• gt-vue 0.1.22: <T>/<Plural>/<Num>, gt generate with no credentials, a hand-filled Spanish catalog, then server rendering in English, Spanish, and Polish.
• gt-react 11.4.12: the <T> inbox, and useGT with react-intl's ICU plural string, which renders "12,345" in English and "12.345" in Spanish. gt validate, gt generate, and tsc --noEmit all pass.
• CLI dry runs: npx gt translate --dry-run finds i18next catalogs.

Not run:

• A credentialed npx gt translate, so no General Translation output is shown or claimed. Spanish templates were filled in by hand.
• Vendor CLIs and integrations (Smartling, Lokalise, Phrase, Crowdin, Transifex), which need accounts.

Validation

• CI runs on this pull request now that it targets main.
• scripts/: npm test (54 passed) and validate:unsafe-html, validate:callouts, validate:reference-links, validate:structure, validate:blog-order, validate:kb (17 articles), typecheck, and validate-links all pass. The javascript: URL check is clean.
• pnpm build:content passes (590 static pages).
• Rendering: all 11 changed pages return 200 in the apps/content preview, with the expected title, sections, table, code blocks, and KB links. I checked at desktop width and at 375px; tables fit their wrapper, and the page doesn't scroll horizontally. They weren't rendered in the landing app itself (gt-cloud).

Editorial notes

• date is 2026-10-16; update it if publication moves.
• Docs gaps found while testing the CLI (left out of the articles):
  • The CLI docs say it detects react-i18next and next-i18next, but gt@2.26.5 checks only for i18next in package.json. A project that lists only next-i18next is detected as a base project.
  • The JSON jsonSchema option (key selection) exists in the CLI's types and published config schema, but the general docs mention it only on the Mintlify config page and in keyed metadata.
  • The PO file type's config key is pot; a po key silently matches nothing.
• Left out because they're untested or unverified:
  • Whether gt translate generates extra plural keys for i18next JSON, or Polish branches for gt-vue.
  • Whether Lingui PO catalogs translate correctly through the CLI.
  • Exact plan caps for Lokalise's Explorer plan.
  • Any competitor dollar prices; pricing is described by what each vendor meters, with dated links.
• Fairness choices:
  • The vue-i18n article says gt-vue is 0.x and marked unstable, and that vue-i18n wins on Nuxt.
  • The Transifex article notes that Native's SDKs are open source too; its "lower risk" point rests on shipping translations as files.
  • The TMS articles acknowledge each vendor's Git automation, so none of them says engineers upload files by hand.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[cursor]

Risk: medium. This automation is not approving: nine new public Knowledge Base comparison articles (~800 lines of user-facing marketing copy) exceed the low-risk, small-blast-radius bar. Human review is needed, and no reviewers were assigned. Cursor Bugbot and Cursor Security Agent were not running after the first poll.

  

_{Sent by Cursor Approval Agent: Pull Request Router}

[cursor]

Risk: medium. This automation is not approving: nine new public Knowledge Base comparison articles exceed the low-risk, small-blast-radius threshold. Human review is needed, and no reviewers were assigned. Cursor Bugbot and Cursor Security Agent were not running after the first poll.

  

_{Sent by Cursor Approval Agent: Pull Request Router}

[pie575]