Should I self-host Lokalise?
At $144/mo, Lokalise is one of the widest gaps on the whole scoreboard: Weblate and Tolgee are mature, translation-memory-equipped platforms that agencies and open-source projects run in production every day.
Lokalise's design-tool plugins and managed TM cleanup
Their per-key collaboration niceties
translation management · translation memory · collaboration & review · format round-trips
* Percent of the subscription price. Your time is priced at the slider's rate — $0/h ("my homelab time is free and I love it") is a legitimate position. Every number is derived from the record, never hand-written. Price source, checked 2026-08-07.
Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).
Boot to healthy measured at 87s on the 2GB reference env
# Tolgee — localization platform; standalone image with embedded postgres
services:
tolgee:
image: tolgee/tolgee:latest
container_name: tolgee
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
TOLGEE_AUTHENTICATION_ENABLED: "true"
TOLGEE_AUTHENTICATION_INITIAL_PASSWORD: changeme123
TOLGEE_POSTGRES_AUTOSTART_ENABLED: "true"
ports:
- "8105:8080"
volumes:
- tolgee-data:/data
probe:
image: busybox:stable
network_mode: "service:tolgee"
depends_on:
- tolgee
command: sh -c 'while true; do sleep 30; done'
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD-SHELL", "nc -z localhost 8080 || exit 1"]
interval: 5s
timeout: 5s
retries: 60
start_period: 60s
volumes:
tolgee-data:
Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/lokalise has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.
FULL TIMED LOG
# Lokalise — verdict log - **Date:** 2026-08-10 - **Verdict:** YES — worth it - **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code) ## Setup evidence - Compose: `compose/lokalise-tolgee.yml` - Boot to healthy: **87s** measured this session - Setup time recorded: 32 min (boot + configuration to first working workflow) ## What broke / notes - Boot to healthy measured at 87s on the 2GB reference env ## The call At $144/mo, Lokalise is one of the widest gaps on the whole scoreboard: Weblate and Tolgee are mature, translation-memory-equipped platforms that agencies and open-source projects run in production every day.