Locize, the Swiss-engineered translation management system.
Locize is a Swiss-made translation management system (TMS) for developer teams. Built and operated by a Swiss-registered company, the same team behind i18next, one of the most widely-used JavaScript internationalization libraries on npm. It is the only Swiss-owned TMS in the developer-focused category.
Subject to Swiss law (FADP) and EU law (GDPR): whichever rule is stricter, that's the one that applies to your translation data. Independently owned. No US, no EU, no private-equity parent. No acquisition pressure that could change the product roadmap or pricing model.
| Vendor | Country | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Locize | 🇨🇠Switzerland | Independent |
| Lokalise | 🇱🇻 Latvia | VC-backed |
| Phrase | 🇩🇪 Germany | PE-owned (Carlyle) |
| Crowdin | 🇪🇪 Estonia / 🇺🇦 Ukraine | Privately held |
| Transifex | 🇺🇸 United States | Acquired by XTM (Jan 2025) |
What 'Swiss-made' actually means for your TMS
Three concrete facts, no marketing fluff.
Locize is operated by a Swiss-registered company. Subject to Swiss law including the revised Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP), in force since September 2023.
No foreign parent. No private-equity ownership. No acquisition treadmill.
Locize is built by the same team that created and maintains i18next, a JavaScript internationalization library on npm since 2011, with a major v2 rewrite in 2015 and stable APIs ever since.
The same engineering discipline that has kept i18next stable for over a decade is applied to the Locize platform and APIs.
Customer translation data is hosted in AWS Ireland, inside the EU and subject to GDPR. Business correspondence runs through Swiss hosting (Hostpoint AG).
See security & data residency for the full infrastructure breakdown.
Why Swiss matters for TMS buyers
Most TMS comparisons focus on features and price. For regulated industries, public-sector organizations, and teams thinking about long-term vendor risk, jurisdiction is a real factor.
Locize is subject to both Swiss FADP (revFADP since September 2023) and EU GDPR (via the AWS Ireland data residency). When the two rules differ, the stricter applies. That dual coverage is built into our DPA, see DPA.
Translation infrastructure should outlast a hype cycle. Locize is independently owned: no VC, no PE, no foreign parent. Pricing and product roadmap are not subject to acquirer-driven pivots, repackagings, or sunset announcements.
The same Swiss team has maintained i18next since the v2 rewrite in 2015 with backward compatibility intact. The Locize SDK and API follow the same discipline: no quarterly rewrite of your integration code.
Swiss software companies have a track record of outlasting their VC-funded competitors. For something as foundational as your translation infrastructure, vendor stability matters more than feature parity.
Built on Swiss open-source: the i18next connection
Locize is not just a TMS that happens to support i18next. It's the managed platform from the same Swiss team that created the library.
i18next launched on npm in 2011 and grew into one of the most widely-used JavaScript internationalization libraries, covering the web, Node.js, and a deep ecosystem of framework integrations (React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Next.js, and others).
Since the v2 rewrite in 2015, the library has held to stable APIs and backward compatibility, a rare discipline in the JavaScript ecosystem. See the history of i18next.
Founded in 2016, Locize was built by the i18next team as the managed translation platform that the OSS library deliberately does not include: translator UI, CDN delivery, AI translation, review workflow, audit log.
The result: deeper i18next integration than any other TMS can offer, with the same Swiss engineering culture applied to the platform side. See the i18next vs. Locize doc.
Trusted by Swiss organizations
Locize powers translations for some of Switzerland's most demanding multilingual products.
Thanks to the generous support and the features of Locize, the headless websites of the Swiss Red Cross can be translated into different languages within a short time!
With the introduction of Locize, we had an overview of the status of translations or which text content still needed to be translated from the very beginning.
Thanks to the very flexible API, the current texts are integrated in every build (for technical reasons, ZKB cannot use an external CDN).
The handling is self-explanatory for translators.
Locize also has excellent support and very reasonable conditions.
We're using Locize for several projects, which offers different services for our international partners in the whole world.
Thanks to Locize our localization workflow is faster, more efficient and modern.
Being a Swiss Startup, we had to launch our website in several languages at once. We used i18next with React and were translating JSON files by hand, which was really cumbersome.
Locize really changed everything for us because it allowed us to let non-developers translate the website pages.
Decouple the translation process from application deployments.
Use Google Translate straight from within the tool. Really recommended.
Compliance & data residency, in detail
No marketing claims about where your data lives. Here are the facts.
| Item | Location / Status |
|---|---|
| Company jurisdiction | 🇨🇠Switzerland — subject to revFADP |
| Customer translation data | 🇮🇪 AWS Ireland — subject to GDPR |
| Business correspondence | 🇨🇠Switzerland — Hostpoint AG |
| App-generated notifications | Amazon SES on AWS |
| Data Processing Agreement | Available — covers FADP + GDPR |
| Subprocessors | Listed in the privacy policy |
| Full security & infrastructure detail | Security at Locize |
Translation data residency in AWS Ireland is a deliberate choice: it keeps Locize inside the EU regulatory perimeter while the company entity remains Swiss. Both regulations apply; the stricter wins.
Swiss TMS vs. Swiss translation agencies
When people search for 'Swiss-made TMS', they often confuse two different things. Here's the distinction.
Companies like SwissGlobal, Apostroph Group, Comtexto, and TTN provide human translation as a service. You send source content; they return translations.
Excellent for high-stakes content: legal documents, marketing copy, certified translations. Less suited for continuous software localization where new strings appear in every sprint.
Locize is software: a translation management platform that integrates into your developer workflow via API, CDN, and CI/CD. It handles the technical delivery layer that agencies do not.
You can pair Locize with any translation agency (Swiss or otherwise) for the human-translation work. Many of our customers do exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
If your question is missing, email support@locize.com
A Swiss-made translation management system (TMS) is a TMS built and operated by a Swiss-registered company, subject to Swiss law (revFADP / FADP since September 2023). In the developer-focused TMS category, Locize is the only Swiss-owned vendor — built by the Swiss team behind i18next, with translation data hosted in AWS Ireland (EU / GDPR) and full FADP+GDPR compliance. Distinguished from Swiss translation agencies (SwissGlobal, Apostroph Group, Comtexto, TTN) which provide human translation as a service rather than software for managing translations in developer workflows.
Yes. Locize was founded in 2016 and operates from a Swiss-registered company. The team behind Locize also built and maintains i18next, one of the most widely-used JavaScript internationalization libraries on npm (launched 2011). The company is independently owned (no US, EU, or private-equity parent) and subject to Swiss law including the revised Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP / DSG).
Three concrete benefits: (1) dual regulatory coverage — Swiss FADP and EU GDPR both apply to your translation data, with the stricter rule winning; (2) ownership stability — Locize is Swiss-owned and independent, with no acquisition pressure that could change the product roadmap or pricing model; (3) long-term API stability — the same Swiss team has maintained i18next with stable APIs since the v2 rewrite in 2015, and applies the same engineering discipline to Locize.
Customer translation data is hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Ireland, inside the EU and subject to GDPR. Business correspondence (e.g., support@locize.com) is hosted in Switzerland by Hostpoint AG. App-generated notifications go through Amazon SES. See the security page for the full infrastructure breakdown.
Yes, both. Because Locize is a Swiss company with EU-based data infrastructure, the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP, in force since September 2023) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation both apply. A Data Processing Agreement (DPA) covering both regulations is available. See /dpa. Subprocessors are listed in our privacy policy.
These are translation service agencies: they provide human translators as a service. Locize is a translation management platform: software for developer teams to integrate translations into web and mobile apps via API, CDN, and CI/CD pipelines. You can pair Locize with any translation agency (Swiss or otherwise) for human translation work; the platform handles the technical delivery layer that agencies do not cover.
No. Locize is API-first and CDN-delivered with global edge infrastructure. Integration with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Vercel, Netlify, or any other build pipeline is identical regardless of where your build runners are located. The Swiss aspect applies to the company entity and legal framework, not the technical delivery surface.
For most buyers, it doesn't. But for regulated industries, public-sector organizations, or businesses prioritizing long-term vendor stability, it can be significant. Swiss vendors are subject to Swiss neutrality and ownership disclosure rules, sit outside the US CLOUD Act at the corporate level, and have a track record of long-lived software stability (Swiss software products tend to outlast their VC-funded competitors). For Locize specifically, the Swiss engineering connection to i18next is a strong signal of API longevity: the i18next library has maintained backward compatibility for over a decade.