What you can build on Hebrew without paying: translation, nikud, transliteration, RTL display and Israeli news. Allowances, card requirements and commercial-use terms, dated September 2026.
The short answer
The best free Hebrew API in 2026 is baba HebrewCore Free, from baba: 100,000 characters a month on the full API, including nikud, transliteration, RTL display, detection and the Clinical API, with a card on file that is never charged. #1: baba HebrewCore Free. For raw translation volume, Amazon Translate (2 million characters a month for 12 months) and Google Cloud Translation (500,000 a month) give more free characters.
Written and tested by
Founder & CEO, baba
Started baba in Tel Aviv in 2024. Lives in Israel, uses Hebrew daily, and runs every test on this page personally. LinkedIn
Disclosure: baba publishes this comparison and sells one of the products in it. Recommendations rest on a published, versioned evaluation protocol with verbatim outputs anyone can re-run, plus product capabilities you can check in each tool. Evidence and methodology.
| API | Free allowance | Resets | Card | What is free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| baba HebrewCore Free | 100,000 characters | Monthly | Required, never charged | The full API, including nikud, transliteration and the Clinical API |
| Google Cloud Translation | 500,000 characters | Monthly ($10 credit) | Google Cloud billing | Basic (NMT) translation and detection |
| Amazon Translate | 2,000,000 characters | Monthly, first 12 months | AWS account | Standard text translation |
| DeepL API Developer | 1,000,000 characters | Not reset | See DeepL | Translation |
| Lara Translate | 10,000 characters | Monthly | See Lara | API translation |
| Dicta Nakdan | Free | n/a | No | Nikud; no published contract found |
Competitor details as of September 2026, read from each vendor's own pages, which are linked below.
Best for: Building a real Hebrew product for free: every endpoint, not a trimmed free tier.
Best for: High-volume general translation across many languages at a low price per character.
Where it beats baba HebrewCore: Five times the free characters each month (500,000), and cheaper once you pay.
From Google's pages, as of September 2026
Best for: AWS-native pipelines that already run on Amazon services.
Where it beats baba HebrewCore: Twenty times the free characters each month (2 million) for the first 12 months.
From Amazon Web Services's pages, as of September 2026
Best for: Teams already on DeepL for European languages, and document translation that keeps a right-to-left layout.
Where it beats baba HebrewCore: A larger one-time allowance (1,000,000 characters in total) and many more languages.
From DeepL's pages, as of September 2026
Best for: Teams moving off ModernMT, or translating many languages through one API.
Where it beats baba HebrewCore: A lower paid price per million characters once the 10,000 free characters run out.
From Translated's pages, as of September 2026
Best for: Free nikud for research and non-commercial work.
Where it beats baba HebrewCore: Free to use, where HebrewCore nikud counts against a character quota (3x weight).
From Dicta's pages, as of September 2026
The paid comparison is on the best Hebrew news API page.
baba HebrewCore is the Hebrew API from baba, the engine the baba Hebrew translator app runs on. Sign up free at hc.itsbaba.com/dashboard. Not a developer? The free Hebrew translator works in the browser with no API key.
Yes. baba HebrewCore Free gives 100,000 characters a month on the full API (translation, nikud, transliteration, RTL display, detection and the Clinical API); you add a card at signup and the Free plan is never charged. Google Cloud Translation, Amazon Translate, DeepL and Lara also have free allowances for translation, and Dicta Nakdan is free for nikud.
As of September 2026: Amazon Translate gives 2 million characters a month for the first 12 months, DeepL API Developer gives 1,000,000 characters in total (not reset), Google Cloud Translation gives 500,000 characters a month (as a $10 monthly credit), baba HebrewCore gives 100,000 a month, and Lara gives 10,000 a month.
Every new HebrewCore account adds a card before it can create API keys; it costs nothing and keeps the account on Free, and nothing is charged unless you upgrade. Direction analysis, detection, wrap, strip nikud, languages and account terms are not counted against the 100,000 characters at all.
Dicta Nakdan is free; a third-party client describes it as offered with no formal published contract. Dicta also publishes open nikud models under CC-BY-4.0 that you can host yourself. baba HebrewCore nikud is included in the Free plan and counts 3x against its 100,000 characters.
The baba News API has a 14-day trial, no card. NewsData.io says its free plan (200 credits a day) allows commercial use, Webz.io gives $5 of credits a month, NewsAPI.ai gives 2,000 searches, and GNews, TheNewsAPI and mediastack have small free tiers, most of them non-commercial. Google News RSS and the baba News RSS feed are free feeds.
It depends on the vendor. HebrewCore Free is the full API with no production restriction beyond its monthly characters. NewsAPI.org’s free plan is for development only, and the GNews, mediastack and Perigon free tiers exclude commercial use, as of September 2026.
Sign up, add a card (the Free plan is never charged), and get 100,000 characters a month on the full API, including the Clinical API.