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owo-network/deeplx

★ 8,472GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TLDR

DeepLX wraps the DeepL translation service in a self-hosted API endpoint that works without a DeepL account or authentication token, giving you free access to high-quality machine translation.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((DeepLX))
    What it does
      Free translation API
      DeepL compatible
      No account required
    Setup
      Docker image
      Precompiled binary
    Integrations
      BobPlugin macOS
      Custom apps
      Automation scripts
    Tech
      Go
      Self-hosted
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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Point existing DeepL-compatible apps at a self-hosted endpoint to skip account setup and API costs

USE CASE 2

Add free machine translation to a personal project or automation pipeline

USE CASE 3

Use as a translation backend for macOS apps like BobPlugin

USE CASE 4

Share a single DeepLX instance across multiple tools on a home network

Tech stack

GoDocker

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Setup and usage documentation is hosted externally at deeplx.owo.network rather than in the repository itself.

In plain English

DeepLX is a tool that exposes a free translation API by wrapping the DeepL translation service. DeepL is a well-regarded machine translation service known for producing high-quality results in European languages. The official DeepL API requires you to sign up and get an authentication token, with usage limits and costs that apply once you exceed the free tier. DeepLX bypasses that by accessing the service without requiring a token, making it possible to use translation functionality without an account. The project is written in Go and is available as a Docker image or a precompiled binary. It presents a compatible API endpoint that other tools and applications can point at as though it were the real DeepL API, which means software already built to work with DeepL can be redirected to use DeepLX instead. The README for this project is quite sparse. It links to external documentation at deeplx.owo.network for setup and usage instructions rather than including them directly in the repository. There is also a Telegram group for community discussion. The repository lists a plugin called BobPlugin among its topics, which appears to be a macOS translation application that can use DeepLX as a backend, though this is not described in the README itself. The project is open-source and has received contributions from multiple people. License compliance details are tracked through FOSSA, as noted in the README.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Deploy DeepLX as a Docker container locally and show me how to call its API endpoint to translate a sentence from English to French.
Prompt 2
Configure the BobPlugin macOS translation app to use a self-hosted DeepLX instance instead of the official DeepL API.
Prompt 3
Write a Python script that sends text to a running DeepLX server and returns the translated result, with error handling for failures.
Prompt 4
Set up DeepLX on a VPS so multiple tools on my home network can use it as a shared free translation API endpoint.
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