If you read Russian supplier emails, Yandex Translate is probably already in your bookmarks. It's one of the most established translators in Eastern Europe, backed by Yandex Cloud Translate, an API for developers.
Lexibird is aimed at the people on the other side of that API: those who translate every day and never want to write code to do it. The differences that matter most are that you choose which leading AI model handles your text, your glossaries live inside the app rather than behind an API, and documents, recordings, and screenshots all go through the same workspace.
At a glance
| Lexibird | Yandex Translate | |
|---|---|---|
| Text translation | 200+ languages | 90+ languages on the web, 100+ through Cloud Translate |
| Translation engine | Choose Claude, GPT, or Gemini models, or let Auto pick | Yandex's own machine translation |
| Documents | PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more; up to 40 MB, batch upload | DOC/DOCX, PDF, XLS/XLSX, PPT/PPTX; up to 5 MB |
| Glossaries | Managed in the app and shared with your team | Through the Cloud Translate API, up to 50 term pairs per request |
| Images | Photos, screenshots, and screen-region capture on desktop | Upload an image, view or download the translated version |
| Audio | Transcribe recordings, dictate, listen with adjustable speed | Voice input and text-to-speech |
| Desktop | macOS and Windows apps with a global shortcut | Web and mobile apps |
| Teams | Shared workspaces, admin roles, single sign-on on Business | Yandex Cloud access roles for API users |
What is Lexibird?
Lexibird is a translator you sign in to and use, with nothing to configure. Paste a Russian contract clause, drop in a slide deck, or point it at a screenshot, and a leading AI model translates it with attention to context, tone, and idioms. A dictionary and glossaries sit alongside it.
What is Yandex Translate?
Yandex Translate is Yandex's translator for text, websites, images, and documents, covering more than 90 languages on the web, with offline translation in its mobile app. Yandex Cloud Translate is a separate service that exposes the same technology to developers through REST and gRPC APIs, with support for more than 100 languages and glossaries.
1. Pick the model that fits the text
Yandex translates everything with its own engine. Lexibird lets you choose between Claude, GPT, and Gemini model families, or leave it on Auto, with premium models on paid plans.
The difference shows with idioms and tone. Take a Russian business email that says "Не будем делить шкуру неубитого медведя", literally "let's not divide the skin of a bear we haven't killed". Lexibird's AI translation recognizes the idiom and renders it as "let's not count our chickens before they hatch", or a plainer equivalent if you've set a formal tone for a client reply. Nobody wonders why a bear came up in a budget meeting.
2. Bigger documents, more formats
Yandex's web translator handles the common Office formats and PDF and returns them in their original format, which covers a lot of everyday needs. Its 5 MB upload limit is where longer files run into trouble: a scanned contract or an image-heavy deck often exceeds it.
Lexibird's document translation takes files up to 40 MB, several in one go, and returns them with the layout intact. Beyond the Office formats and PDF, it also reads OpenDocument files and saved Outlook messages, so an emailed proposal can go in as it arrived. Uploads are deleted after 24 hours.
3. Glossaries without an API project
Yandex does support glossaries, but through Cloud Translate, which means a developer passes term pairs with each API request. That's useful when you're building translation into software. It doesn't help a support agent who just wants "Личный кабинет" to always come out as "Customer portal".
With Lexibird glossaries, that agent types the pair in once, or brings over the spreadsheet of terms the team already keeps, and everyone in the workspace gets it. From then on, every text translation uses "Customer portal" without anyone remembering to check.
4. Translation where you're already working
Yandex Translate lives on its website and mobile app. Lexibird's desktop app for macOS and Windows stays one keystroke away while you work in another program. When the Russian text is locked inside an admin panel or a customer's screenshot and can't be copied, drag a box around it and Lexibird reads and translates it.
There's also a browser extension for Chromium browsers that translates the passage you've highlighted in a side panel. It doesn't translate whole pages, which Yandex does, but it keeps you on the page you're reading.
5. A shared workspace for the whole team
Yandex Cloud manages access to an API through cloud roles. Lexibird gives a team a workspace: invite colleagues, assign admin and member roles, and share glossaries and settings. Recordings work there too, with transcription for interviews and voice notes up to 25 MB.
The Business plan adds single sign-on (SAML or OIDC) with domain verification, plus zero data retention, which is on by default.
Which one should you choose?
If your developers need a translation API to build into your own product, Yandex Cloud Translate is designed for that.
Choose Lexibird if you want:
- Russian idioms and business phrasing translated for meaning, with a second model to compare when it matters
- Contracts and decks larger than 5 MB translated with their layout kept
- Your team's terminology applied without asking a developer for help
- One app for the emails, screenshots, and recordings that arrive in your working languages
Try Lexibird on a document Yandex couldn't take.
