Basic Bilingual
Allows you to set the language of individual posts and pages and to summarize them in other languages.
Consider an alternative
Basic Bilingual shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 8 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.9 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Basic Bilingual stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| bilingual | >100 |
| language | >100 |
| languages | >100 |
| multilingual | >100 |
| translation | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Basic Bilingual
From the official readme · v1.3.5Description
Allows you to set the language of individual posts and pages and to summarize
them in other languages.
The excerpts are automatically inserted right before the post content, with the
correct language attribute. The correct language attribute is also set on the
post titles and original content.
If you were using this plugin prior to version 1.0 you will have to migrate
your posts and pages.
- Make sure your back-up your database
- Select the same 2 languages you were previously using in the “Site languages”
option - Press the “Migrate” button on the settings page
You might want to check my work on multilingualism online
to understand what brought me to develop this plugin.
We also welcome volunteers to translate that plugin into more languages. If you
wish to help then contact @stephtara on Twitter
or see Stephanie’s contact page.
Credits
Following is the list of people who worked on this plugin.
- Stephanie Booth: Ideas and initial development.
- Tim Isenheim: Contributed bug fixes.
- Luca Palli: Contributed bug fixes and features.
- Claude Vedovini: Took over development for v1.0.
- Nathalie Aynié: Contributed the Italian
translations. - Borisa Djuraskovic: Contributed the
Serbo-Croatian translations. - Jan Spoelstra: Contributed the
Dutch translations.
Privacy Policy
This plugin does not collect any personal information from your visitors.
Installation
- Upload
basic-bilingualto the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Select your site languages in the plugin’s settings
Changelog
Version 1.3.5
- Fixing several bugs in rewrite rules and adding a workaround for a WordPress
bug that prevented the %lang% rewrite tag to work properly
Version 1.3.4
- Fixing a bug that prevents old exerpts to show
Version 1.3.3
- Preparing for language packs
Version 1.3.2
- Fixed side effects with the media library
- Using only one option to save all the plugin’s settings
Version 1.3.1
- Updated Spanish translations
Version 1.3
- Updated all translations
Screenshots
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Basic Bilingual alternatives
All bilingual plugins →
FAQ
Basic Bilingual: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 28, 2026
Is Basic Bilingual free?
Yes. Basic Bilingual is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Basic Bilingual safe to use in 2026?
Basic Bilingual shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 23/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Basic Bilingual?
Basic Bilingual is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 14,616 times since it launched in January 2005. It was downloaded 72 times in the last 30 days.
Does Basic Bilingual work with WordPress 7.1?
Basic Bilingual is officially tested up to WordPress 4.9.33, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Basic Bilingual last updated?
The latest version, 1.3.5, was released on May 18, 2018 (8 years ago).
Who makes Basic Bilingual?
Basic Bilingual is developed and maintained by Steph.
What are the best alternatives to Basic Bilingual?
The most popular alternatives to Basic Bilingual are Hyyan WooCommerce Polylang… (8K+ installs), WPBakery Visual Composer &… (7K+ installs) and WPML to Polylang (5K+ installs).
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