What do you like best about XTM Cloud?
I have worked with XTM for 7+ years and there is not much to praise. I would never recommend it to anyone unless bribed or coerced.
Still, here are a few XTM areas that are fine – but they probably also apply to other CAT tools:
- XTM has all regular CAT tool features but it's cloud-based, software-free.
- Customer support is always responsive
- Customer support can sometimes prove competent. Not always: it greatly varies depending on who you get. Do note that a functional Customer Support is the least of what XTM should offer, considering all the issues that require you contact the Customer Support.
- The UI of the 'workbench' itself (= where translators work) is nice because it is customizable. You can choose which secondary windows to display, and where, how big they are, etc.
- Rare specific features are valuable and well-thought. Examples:
* converting specific bits of code into inline tags such as: [1], [2], etc.
* importing pictures, then in the workbench (= your translation workplace), pictures are displayed next to corresponding string IDs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike about XTM Cloud?
I have worked with XTM from 2018 to 2025.
Let me preface this by saying there is a reason why XTM is better rated here on G2 than on other reviewing platforms. As a consequence, you should not trust any positive reviews about XTM – not here, not anywhere either I suppose.
Also, here is why I am not the problem here, but XTM is:
- Many issues I am about to report were initially reported or confirmed by my colleagues and/or LSPs
- I have been satisfied—or even highly satisfied—of most OTHER softwares that I have used during my employment. I am NOT an overly critical person. I am being critical of XTM specifically because it is objectively a bad-to-mediocre software on most accounts.
Note that I have e-met some very pleasant and competent people working at XTM, especially at Customer Support. I am truly sorry that the product they work on is ultimately terrible, despite their best efforts and professional skills.
_____________I WAS HELD HOSTAGE BY XTM FOR 7 YEARS
XTM purposefully format their Translation Memory to be incompatible with other CAT tools, should you ever want to leave XTM – which you will because it is truly a bad tool. When I realized that I was trapped using XTM forever, it was too late. It at least felt like that: there were too much sunken cost in XTM already.
Today my company is still trapped in this situation; I have never found a clean way out of it. What has changed is that I am just about to leave my company—of my own accord. That is why I can finally "tell the world!" – or rather, tell the 7 people who may stumble upon this review one day.
This should be enough to convince you to never use XTM. If not:
_____________XTM IS AN OCEAN OF ISSUES
* There are too many issues for me to even remember most of them
* Many issues can be seen as severe. And those includes issues that I have reported many times but that were left hanging for all those years
* More frequently, issues are minor QOL issues – but these are very tiring, as you experience them several times daily
* Yes, you can BYPASS most of XTM's shortcomings. But it implies wasting time on using suboptimal processes compared to what you could reasonably expect of a CAT tool
Generally speaking: XTM blatantly lacks customization and "trust" in users. As a result:
=> DOZENS of Customer Support tickets every year.
Many features that should be accessible to you as an admin/translator are absent. Other such features do exist but are out of your reach. You will need to open a Customer Support ticket. For instance, this applies to basic configuration changes, or creating/modifying simple filters; deleting files bugged during initial analysis, etc.
=> Basic features hidden away or displayed under unintuitive/inexact categories
They're here, but in dark places. That means they'll require many clicks to be reached. For instance, imagine a CAT tool with no direct button to generate a target file. In XTM there is no such button accessible in 1 click. From your 'Workflow' view, you are still 1 tab and 4 clicks away from downloading your target file.
Concrete examples of shortcomings:
=> XTM will severely hinders low-to-mid end computers' performance.
Many of the translators I have worked with have reported this issue. They noted how it is so much truer with XTM than any other CAT tools they are used to work with.
=> Customer support is often incompetent
It greatly varies depending on who you get. Quite often, the support employee will fail to even understand your request—instead of looking into it, they may simply discard it as an impossibility. But if you try again a few weeks later, you'll get another person who might just find a solution.
=> As a CAT tool: integrated spell checker malfunctions
Take a second to picture this farce. In any CAT tool, your primary goal is to WRITE SOME WORDS. Yet XTM as a CAT tool fails to provide you with a spelling checker. That's the most basic text-related feature? Anybody's phone handles that perfectly well.
In some languages such as FR, the Spell Checker actually works nowadays. But for other languages such as TR and PL, there are so many false positives that the Spell Checker is flat unsuable, purely a nuisance; translators will have to turn it off.
XTM is aware that their Spell Checker is a joke so they'll offer you to call for Microsoft Word Spellchecker. But guess what: it never worked for me. So at some point I gave up and I spent years translating without an integrated Spell Checker, which is insane.
=> As a CAT tool: QA checks malfunction
Similar as above: too many false positives. Very soon you just end up turning off the QA feature.
=> As a CAT tool: numerous inline tags + fuzzies: not functional
If you have code intertwined with your actual text, AND you often apply tweaks, really do not use XTM. I'll spare you any more details but basically, simple tasks that should be automated are not. Instead you'll have a lot of manual work to do—and to pay for.
=> As a CAT tool: basic value automatic replacements: not functional
Very similar to the above issue.
There is a feature that automatically edits certain fuzzy matches: matches where only ONE value has been changed in otherwise identical text. XTM should provide users with the choice to also use this feature when more values have changed. As simple as it is, this feature would have saved a lot of money to my company over the years.
=> As a CAT tool: AI editing fuzzy matches: not functional
The AI, GPT for instance, will retranslate everything from scratch instead of actually using the fuzzy match as a base and partly tweaking it like in English.
=> As a CAT tool: No home-grown GPT model
It's just not a thing. You'll have to stick to the basic GPT model, which can prove very weak. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
