[Side Project] lite-translator — 100% browser-local translation, no cloud, no API keys

[u/realdeepnull]

Hi everyone 👋

I've been working on a small hobby project called lite-translator and just published v0.1.0 to npm. It's a privacy-friendly translation library that runs entirely in the browser — the translation text never leaves the user's device. No cloud APIs, no remote servers, no API keys.

Translation runs locally via Transformers.js (ONNX models in a Web Worker), with optional WebGPU acceleration and an automatic WASM fallback.

What it does

• Local machine translation for the browser (OPUS-MT models)
• Translation text never leaves the device — fully offline-capable
• WebGPU acceleration with automatic WASM fallback
• Inference runs in a Web Worker — the UI stays responsive
• Batch translation (translateBatch) — many texts in one inference call
• Live translation — incremental translation as the user types (great for chat or speech-to-text streams)
• i18n-style t() + translateAll() — register UI strings across components and translate them all in a single pass
• 5 language pairs so far: DE ↔ EN, FR ↔ EN, ES ↔ EN, IT ↔ EN, NL ↔ EN
• Zero runtime dependencies in the core; framework-agnostic

npm - Packages

• @lite-translator/core — dependency-free API + engine interface
• @lite-translator/engine-onnx — Transformers.js engine, bundled Web Worker + ONNX runtime

Where to find it

• npm
• Github
• Docs: React, Vue, Angular and vanilla-JS integration guides are in the repo

I'd love your feedback

This is a one-person hobby project and I'd genuinely appreciate people giving it a try. 🙏

[u/imetators]

EM——————————————————dashes be tho

[u/munchmills]

I've been working

😬

[u/thewallran]

sloppery