Your organization’s impact grows when more people can connect with your mission. A multilingual website helps you reach broader communities, strengthen relationships with members and donors, and create a more welcoming, inclusive online experience. For organizations using WildApricot, however, building that experience comes with limitations. While the platform allows you to publish content in any language, it does not offer built-in multilingual functionality. There is no native language switcher, no automatic translation feature, and no simple way to customize system labels used in forms or widgets like the event calendar.
The good news is that you are not limited to WildApricot’s default setup. With the right third-party tools, you can create a more seamless multilingual experience and make your website more accessible to the audiences you want to reach. The real question, however, is not simply which language switcher to use. It is how much effort your organization is prepared to invest in managing multilingual content.
So the decision is less “Can it switch languages?” and more:
- Who sets up the multilingual structure?
- Who maintains it every time you add a page, change navigation, or update a form?
- What happens when you need system-label translations that are scattered across gadgets and system pages?
Those are the questions that separate the three approaches below.
The comparison that actually matters: setup effort versus maintenance burden
A practical way to compare these tools is to map the real work into two buckets:
Setup effort (what you must do before launch) typically includes installing scripts/modules, configuring languages, placing a toggle, and establishing how translated content and translated system labels will be managed.
Maintenance burden (what you keep doing after launch) usually includes keeping translated navigation aligned, duplicating or tagging new content correctly, updating translations when your site changes, and dealing with edge cases like new gadget labels, new system messages, and form changes.
With that frame, the three options land in very different places:
- Nicasio Language Toggler is fundamentally a DIY code tutorial that makes your team responsible for structure and upkeep.
- EZ WildApricot Web Designer 2 is a broader design/customization toolset that can do translations, but if you want “ready-made” system label translations, NewPath’s own documentation pushes you toward an additional paid support/training package.
- Apricot Translate is purpose-built to reduce both setup friction and ongoing admin effort, and it now includes AI-assisted translations for menus and WildApricot system labels at no additional cost.
| Tool | Price | Difficulty | Translates System labels | Maximum Languages | Translations provided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apricot Translate | US$60/year | ★☆☆☆☆ (low) | Yes | Unlimited | Yes, auto-translations for system labels |
| NewPath EZ WildApricot Web Designer 2 | US$99/year | ★★★☆☆ (medium) | Yes | Unlimited | Yes, but requires US$2000 translation package |
| Nicasio Language Toggler | DIY (No Cost) | ★★★★★ (high) | No | 2 | No |
The DIY path: Nicasio Language Toggler
With Nicasio’s Language Toggler, you create a duplicate of every page – one in the primary language you want to offer and the other in the secondary language (Only two languages are supported). The language toggle will hide the pages in the menu for the language you aren’t currently viewing.
What setup looks like in practice
Nicasio’s tutorial breaks the implementation into steps that are straightforward at a high level but manual in execution:
- You copy prepared CSS and paste it into WildApricot’s “CSS customization” area.
- You create a second-language home page and give it a custom URL slug plus a “language variable” in the URL (their example uses a pattern like a slug followed by something like
~spanish). The variable is mandatory for the entire process to work correctly. - You paste JavaScript into WildApricot’s Global JavaScript area and manually set site-specific variables (domain, language slug/variable, and language names).
Why maintenance grows quickly
The maintenance implication is baked into the design:
- Positioning and styling the toggle is not “set it and forget it.” Nicasio instructs admins to reposition the toggle by editing
topandleftvalues in a CSS rule set. - They describe final styling as involving “trial and error” and requiring more CSS experience than simple positioning.
- Most importantly: to add more second-language pages, Nicasio instructs you to repeat the same logic for every new page (new page, new title, new slug + language variable, visible to anybody), and to keep the second-language section in a matching structure to the default language—then “repeat for every new page you need to create.”
- Having to maintain two separate pages for each site page can easily lead to version drift between them.
In other words, Nicasio can work well when you have someone comfortable living in CSS and JavaScript and when you accept that bilingual publishing means maintaining parallel structure over time. It is flexible, but the work stays with your team.
See a live demo: https://nicasiolanguagecode.wildapricot.org/
The toolkit-plus-service path: EZ Web Designer 2 from NewPath Consulting
NewPath positions EZ WildApricot Web Designer 2 as a broader customization toolkit: not only translation, but also the ability to customize design and “hard-coded labels and buttons,” hide elements, and add UI enhancements via add-ons.
This matters for the comparison because EZ Web Designer 2 is not “just” a translator, it is a larger surface area product. That can be valuable, but it also changes your effort profile.
Setup effort: somewhat quick install, but more moving pieces
Installation requires several steps, including uploading several files to your account and and modifying JavaScript code. In their FAQ, they estimate “about 10 minutes” for a successful installation.
Ongoing translation work: you can maintain it, but system-label translations are where costs show up
NewPath’s standard annual license fee for EZ WildApricot Web Designer 2 is $99 USD per year. This provides you with the translation tool only. They do provide training and translations for an additional cost – more on that later.
With NewPath’s tool, you can manage translations for both your content, menus, and system labels in multiple languages. Translations are done via via a spreadsheet that you can upload or edit directly within their editor. Adding translations require a bit of technical knowledge as you need to find the CSS selector for the HTML element contain the text you wish to translate. For now non-technical people, they include a point-and-click way to find this information. You are also required to pick the correct function to use based on what needs translating. It’s not the beginner-friendly tool, and unless you are tech-savvy you likely won’t be able to use it right away without training.
NewPath does offer a training and translation package however, which their website lasts as follows::
- USD $1,999 for “Wild Apricot Translation Training,” including up to 10 hours of training.
- The package does not include an EZ Web Designer license and much be purchased separately ($99/year).
- The package comes with a ready-to-use French translation spreadsheet that contains over 600 entries for WildApricot system labels.
Taken together, NewPath offers a legitimate path for organizations that want a broader design toolkit and are comfortable investing in a training/service relationship to manage a translation file. But when you center the comparison on “effort to get set up and maintained,” the translation support package is the practical line item that changes both cost and workload for system-label coverage.
See live demo: https://ez.newpathconsulting.com/
The low-friction overlay: Apricot Translate by Ansid Media
Apricot Translate is designed around a narrower promise: make an existing WildApricot site multilingual without turning bilingual maintenance into a custom-code project.
Apricot Translate focuses on doind only two things: showing the correct language-tagged Content Gadgets your team creates, and providing an in-page interface for translating WildApricot hard-coded text like menus, forms, directories, and other built-in labels.
Setup effort: intentionally short
Installation is simple: nothing to upload, just copy and paste a single line and you’re done. Setup is just as easy, everything is done through a visual interface. Click the floating icon to launch the tool, and configure your languages.
Maintenance model: separate what WildApricot generates from what your team writes
Apricot Translate divides multilingual work into two categories:
- WildApricot-generated text (system labels, menus, gadget labels, directories, and other built-in interface strings) is managed through the Apricot Translate inspector. Simply select the gadget in the visual interface and enter in your translations.
- Content your team adds (your pages’ actual written content, imagery, and layouts) is handled by creating one Content Gadget per language and adding the appropriate language tag so the switcher displays the right version.
Pricing: $60/year for unlimited languages, with AI auto-translations for system labels included
Auto-translate your system labels with the click of a button – AI translations are included in your $60 annual subscription. You are still in control with AI translations – you must initiate the translations and then save them when satisfied. You can event enter context about your organization to ensure that specialized terms and acronyms are translated correctly.
All created translations are stored in your WildApricot account, and are yours to take with you should you cancel your subscription.
See live demo: https://translate.wildapricot.org
Side-by-side takeaways on effort and total cost
Here is the practical comparison when you weight “effort required to get set up and maintained” as the primary decision factor.
Nicasio Language Toggler
- Setup effort: Highest. Backup site code, add CSS, create second-language home page with custom slug and language variable, paste JavaScript into Global JavaScript, manually set variables, then tweak placement/styling.
- Maintenance: Grows with every page, because adding more pages requires repeating the same second-language page logic and keeping structures aligned. They also describe styling as involving “trial and error.”
- System labels: You are responsible for solving system/gadget label translation via your own implementation choices; the tutorial is only for toggling/hiding content structure.
EZ WildApricot Web Designer 2 + Translation Support Service
- Setup effort: Moderate. Requires uploading files and editing JavaScript.
- Maintenance: Manageable for teams that commit to the tool, but you are working inside a broader customization framework.
- Cost: $99 USD/year for the license. If you want the ready-made set of 600+ standard gadget/system label translations (French out of the box) plus training, the translation training package is USD $1,999 in addition to the EZ Web Designer license.
- Time reality: NewPath’s own estimate says custom translation scope can take 5 to 100+ hours depending on how much you translate beyond the standard pack.
Apricot Translate
- Setup effort: Lowest. Add one script, whitelist domain, configure languages.
- Maintenance: Designed around a clean split: you manage your content translations in Content Gadgets; the tool manages WildApricot-generated text translations through the inspector.
- Cost: US$60/year.
- System labels: AI-assisted auto-translate for WildApricot system labels is included in every subscription, with no separate paid translation package required just to get started on standard labels.
Recommendation: pick the tool your team can still run six months after launch
Bilingual sites rarely fail on launch day. They fail the week you post a new event, adjust a membership form, add a new menu item, or realize that half the member-facing workflows still contain English system strings that were never translated. The “effort model” you choose determines whether those moments become routine admin tasks or mini redevelopment projects.
- If your organization wants maximum DIY control and has someone comfortable owning ongoing CSS/JavaScript work and maintaining a parallel bilingual structure, the Nicasio approach can be a fit—but you should go in expecting the work to remain internal over time.
- If you want a broader customization toolkit and you are comfortable paying for training/support and building processes around translation files, NewPath’s model can be a fit—just treat the $99/year licence as the starting point, not the whole system-label translation story.
- If your primary goal is a multilingual WildApricot site with the least setup friction and the clearest maintenance workflow, Apricot Translate is purpose-built for that lane: simple install, explicit division of responsibilities, translations stored on your site, and AI drafting for supported system labels included at the $60/year subscription level.
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