The top 3 Shopify translation apps for 2025 in Switzerland are Langify, Translate & Adapt, and LangShop – each bringing specific strengths for different shop needs, especially when you’re planning more complex Shopify Plus projects.

As a Swiss online retailer, you’re facing the unique challenge of covering at least three to four languages to reach your local customers.

The four national languages German, French, Italian, and Romansh plus English for international customers make multilingualism not optional, but a business foundation. While translations used to come exclusively from human translators, AI translation is revolutionizing the market today.

This technology promises faster implementation and lower costs, but also brings new challenges. Particularly with legal texts or cultural nuances, automated translation still has limits.

The Most Important Translation Apps in Detail

Choosing the right translation app depends heavily on your specific requirements, budget, and desired control over translation quality. Here you’ll find a detailed analysis of the most important apps for Swiss Shopify shops.

Langify: The Swiss Favorite for Maximum Control

Langify is considered one of the most trustworthy and established translation solutions in the Shopify ecosystem and particularly impresses with its flexibility in manual translations. The app supports all Swiss languages and offers excellent theme compatibility.

What makes Langify particularly stand out is the precise control over every translated text. You can individually customize product descriptions, meta titles, and even images. This detailed control is especially valuable for Swiss shops where cultural nuances and local spelling variants matter.

Langify’s SEO features are solid too – the app automatically translates meta descriptions and titles, ensuring optimized search engine rankings in different languages. Customer support is fast and competent, which helps with technical questions or special customizations.

Langify is particularly interesting for Shopify Plus projects, as larger companies often have special requirements for translation quality and individual customizations. Manual control makes it possible to precisely translate even complex product catalogs and legal texts.

Translate & Adapt: Shopify’s Free Solution

Shopify’s in-house Translate & Adapt app is completely free and offers automatic translation for two languages plus unlimited manual translations. The seamless integration with Shopify Markets makes it particularly attractive for smaller to medium-sized shops.

The app uses Shopify’s own localization infrastructure and therefore works smoothly with all native Shopify functions. You can translate URLs, meta data, and product information without bearing additional monthly costs.

For Swiss shops, it’s particularly interesting that Translate & Adapt is perfect for gradual internationalization. You can start with two automatically translated languages and add more manually.

However, the limitation to two automatic languages can be a disadvantage for larger Swiss shops that want to cover all national languages.

LangShop: AI Power with Mixed Experiences

LangShop positions itself as a comprehensive solution with strong AI integration and support for over 200 languages. The app combines automatic translation with support for multiple currencies in one tool.

LangShop’s AI-powered, context-based translations are technically impressive and save considerable time with large product catalogs. Compatibility with Shopify Markets facilitates international expansion.

However, our practical experiences with LangShop were problematic – besides user-friendliness and stability issues, we’ve had particularly negative experiences with unexpected costs. The app automatically triggered thousands of unnecessary translations via the API, leading to unexpected bills of $2,000 to $3,000 per month for our clients.

This cost trap occurs because LangShop automatically retranslates all content with every small change to the shop, without you being able to control it. This is particularly problematic for the demanding Swiss market, where cost control and reliability are crucial.

Weglot: The Elegant Solution for a Quick Start

Weglot stands out for its particularly user-friendly configuration and combines leading AI translation services like DeepL, Google, and Microsoft in one solution. The app works without programming knowledge and offers functional translations immediately after installation.

What makes Weglot particularly elegant is the central management of all translations through a clear dashboard. You can post-edit automatic translations without diving into complex menu structures.

The SEO features are comprehensive – Weglot automatically creates hreflang tags, translates URLs, and makes all pages indexable for search engines. For Swiss shops, this means better findability in local Google searches.

The biggest problem with Weglot is the unreliable word calculation, which quickly leads to cost traps. While Weglot has a word calculation tool, it seems to often be blocked by JavaScript.

We recently had a case where the tool predicted around 60,000 words and we ended up with around 490,000 words. That’s eight times the originally calculated amount and leads to correspondingly drastically higher costs, as Weglot bills by word count and languages.

Also an issue is that words permanently remain in the “Word Count.” A word will appear in the calculation as long as it’s active – even if you no longer use the content. This makes long-term cost control practically impossible.

Other Important Alternatives at a Glance

Besides the main candidates, there are specialized solutions for special requirements. Transcy offers over 100 languages without word limits and particularly scores with image translations and geolocation.

Liquid Translator is suitable for shops with custom themes or complex HTML code, as it protects Liquid code and supports nearly 200 target languages. The pay-per-use model makes it interesting for smaller projects.

ETranslate combines translation with currency conversion, while GTranslate serves as a budget solution for price-conscious projects.

How to Choose the Right App for Your Shop

Selecting the right Shopify translation app depends on four factors you should evaluate before making a decision:

• The size of your product catalog largely determines whether automatic or manual translation makes more sense. For large catalogs with over 500 products, apps with comprehensive AI support like Translate & Adapt, LangShop, or Weglot are practically indispensable. Small, curated assortments, on the other hand, benefit from the precision of manual translation with Langify.
• Your need for control is the second essential factor. If you’re selling in legally sensitive areas or in the luxury segment where every formulation counts, Langify is often the best choice.
• Integration with Shopify Markets is becoming increasingly important for international expansion. Currently, Translate & Adapt leads here thanks to native Shopify integration.
• Your internal workflows determine practical usage. If you have your own translators, choose apps with CSV import/export functions for efficient workflows.

AI Translation: Revolution or Risk for Swiss Shops?

AI translation revolutionizes the speed and cost efficiency of translation projects, but brings special challenges for the Swiss market. Modern AI systems can translate large product catalogs in minutes and deliver first drafts for all content.

The time savings are dramatic: what used to take weeks, AI now completes in hours. For shops with hundreds or thousands of products, this makes the difference between feasible and impossible.

However, the limits quickly show with cultural nuances and local specificities. Swiss formalities, regional expressions, and legal terminology regularly overwhelm current AI systems.

It becomes particularly problematic with legal texts like terms and conditions or privacy policies. Translation errors can have legal consequences here.

The best approach combines both methods: AI creates quick first versions, which are then revised by native speakers. Especially for French, German, and Italian in Switzerland, where tone and formalities are culturally important, human post-editing is essential.

Practical Tips for Successful Implementation

Successful implementation of a multilingual Shopify strategy begins with the right order of translated content. Prioritize product pages, checkout process, and navigation before less important texts like blog articles.

SEO optimization is particularly critical for multilingual shops. Make sure that meta tags and URLs are correctly translated – Langify and Translate & Adapt handle this automatically.

Use Shopify Markets for URL structuring and market targeting. This improves not only user experience but also your search engine rankings in different regions.

When choosing an AI-powered translation app, you should pay particular attention to hidden costs, as many apps use external translation services and charge per API call. The problem: apps like LangShop trigger automatic re-translations with every change without warning you. ChatGPT-based translations are often significantly cheaper than DeepL or Google Translate, but not all apps offer this option. Make sure you can choose the translation engine and maintain control over automatic translations.

Run A/B tests between AI and manually translated pages if you’re unsure. Success rates will quickly show you which approach works better for your target audience.

Plan long-term maintenance and updates – translations aren’t a one-time project but need continuous care. Especially with legal changes or new products, quick response is important.

Conclusion: The Right Choice for Your Swiss Shop

The best Shopify translation app for your shop depends on your specific requirements, with Langify for maximum control, Translate & Adapt for cost-effective solutions, and Weglot for quick implementation. AI translation offers enormous potential but should always be combined with human post-editing.

For most Swiss shops, we recommend a hybrid approach: automatic initial translation for product catalogs and manual refinement for important pages. Investment in professional translation pays off through higher success rates and better customer satisfaction.

The future belongs to intelligent translation workflows that combine AI speed with human precision. Apps are increasingly getting better at understanding cultural nuances and considering local specificities.

If you need support in selecting and implementing the right translation solution, specialized agencies can help – both with technical implementation and professional translations into all relevant languages.

Tip: Also read our post about Shopify ERP integrations.