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Performant Translations
Making internationalization/localization in WordPress faster than ever before.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.9★ from 16
- Active installs
- 40k+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 18 Aug 2026
- Added
- Aug 2023
- Requires WP
- 6.5
- Tested up to
- WP 7.1
- Requires PHP
- 7.0
- Downloads
- 215,745
Our analysis
AI-assistedPerformant Translations is a WordPress plugin designed to enhance the speed of internationalization and localization on your site. It achieves this by converting .mo translation files into .php files, which can significantly reduce loading times for sites using languages other than English (US).
This plugin is particularly useful for developers or users who are working with custom or commercial plugins that do not download language packs from WordPress.org. It is relevant for those who need to optimize their site's performance when using translations, especially after the functionality has been merged into WordPress 6.5.
Best for: This plugin suits developers and users of WordPress sites that require optimized translations.
What it does well
- ✓Converts .mo files to .php for improved speed
- ✓Reduces loading times for localized WordPress sites
- ✓Suitable for custom or commercial plugin users
- ✓Free to use from the WordPress.org directory
- ✓High rating of 4.9 out of 5 from users
Where it falls short
- •Most functionality has been merged into WordPress 6.5
- •May not be necessary for all users
Verdict
Performant Translations can be beneficial for specific use cases involving custom translations, but its necessity may be limited due to recent updates in WordPress.
From the developer
Pascal Birchler's own description of Performant Translations, lightly tidied.
Making internationalization/localization in WordPress faster than ever before.
Disclaimer about WordPress 6.5
Attention: most functionality of this plugin has been merged into WordPress 6.5! You might not need it anymore.
However, this plugin is still relevant for cases where language packs are not downloaded from WordPress.org but somewhere else, for example if you are developing your own plugins or using commercial plugins.
The Performant Translations plugin converts the translation files of those plugins to the new file format introduced in WordPress 6.5, to really optimize them for speed.
What this plugin does
This project uses a new approach to handle translation files in WordPress, making localization blazing fast.
An in-depth i18n performance analysis showed that localized WordPress sites load significantly slower than a site without translations.
With this plugin’s new approach to localization, this overhead is massively reduced, making your site fast again. It does so by converting .mo translation files to .php files.
If your site is using a language other than English (US), you should see immediate speed improvements simply by activating this plugin.
Tagged as
purpose
Multilingual & Translation
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