Smartling

Kommentare: The platform has streamlined an otherwise tedious process to manage. Marketing and localization projects can be tough to keep track of without a tool like this to track all the small moving parts. Seeing the translation in layout for a website is extremely powerful.

Vorteile: Smartling makes it very easy for companies to translate their website and manage multilingual updates to their content. It requires very little maintenance after setup for the client, and is simple and straightforward on the translator's side as well.

Nachteile: Smartling doesn't require the use of some of the features that make it so powerful, such as visual context. For one of our clients, we are translating their website, and despite our best efforts, they will not share the visual context with us. Apart from the live updates, this is one of the most powerful features of the platform, and allows the translators to provide the best possible translation. Context matters, but is sadly not required.

Kommentare: Smartling is an average CAT tool. It does what it needs to do, but it does not have enough advanced features. You (as a translator) are not in control of the files nor TMs, but that is OK. My biggest concern is that it is very slow in comparison to other (mainly non-cloud) tools. I know that this is the price you pay for being always online, but we don’t want/need to be always online. My internet connection is good and still it lags sometimes. Working with TM is also not very user friendly, searching in TM is slow and search algorithm is not perfect.
This CAT tool has a potential, but it needs to employ more features, allow the users to work offline, and give them better control of the files and TMs (not only to admins - who are often clients).
If you are looking for something easy, you might give it a try.

Vorteile: Smartling is quite easy to use, not very difficult to master.

Nachteile: Very few advanced features, too slow to my liking...

Vorteile: I like that we're able to upload all of our content with ease and pull the strings we need to authorize for translation. Overall ease of use.

Nachteile: We wish it was less expensive. The price is pretty hefty and I know we'd prefer if it wasn't so high.

Kommentare: Good for beginners. Very intuitive and easy to use.

Vorteile: First of all, I have only used Smartling for a handful of projects at the request of a couple of clients.
The software is extremely intuitive and easy to use, so if you are an absolute beginner Smartling might be a good starting point, rather than full-blown CAT tools such as SDL Trados or MemoQ.
Even though it is still a bit rudimentary at the moment, new features are constantly being added. The developers are in touch with translators and keep in touch through a newsletter.

Nachteile: I find Smartling lacking important features for a professional translator, so you might want to wait until new features are added. For instance, the first time I used it didn't highlight spelling mistakes, but this functionality has now been added (among others, such as a multi-string editor).
The tag-handling functionality has also been improved.