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RuneManga compared with other manga translators.
How RuneManga compares with other ways to translate manga, manhwa and manhua: what each tool does, what it costs and what happens to your pages.
Head-to-head
One page per tool: what it does, what it costs, what happens to your pages, and when to pick which.
RuneManga vs Torii Image Translator compared
Torii and RuneManga side by side: extension, web app, editor, colorizer, pricing and what happens to your pages. Facts checked October 2026.
RuneManga vs Ichigo Reader: manga translators compared
Ichigo Reader and RuneManga compared: upload page, extension, apps, languages, AI models, subscription or free plan, and data handling.
RuneManga vs manga-image-translator compared
The open-source manga-image-translator next to RuneManga: self-hosting or a hosted web app, translators, colorizer, cost and privacy.
RuneManga vs Google Lens for translating manga
Google Lens or RuneManga for manga and manhwa: a quick general-purpose translation or a re-lettered page. What each one does, costs and sends.
RuneManga vs BallonsTranslator: hosted or desktop
BallonsTranslator, the open-source desktop editor, next to the RuneManga WebApp: setup, translators, editing, cost and privacy compared.
RuneManga vs Papago for translating manga
Papago or RuneManga for manga and manhwa pages: image translation, batches, extensions, languages, price and what happens to your images.
RuneManga vs Yandex Translate for manga pages
Yandex Translate or RuneManga for manga and manhwa: one picture at a time or whole chapters, languages, extensions, price and privacy.
RuneManga vs DeepL for translating manga images
DeepL or RuneManga for manga pages: image translation on the web and in the apps, batches, languages, price and how your pages are used.
9 tools, one table
The same nine points for every tool, taken from each tool's own pages and store listings. Each comparison page adds when to choose which.
| Feature | RuneManga | Torii Image Translator | Ichigo Reader | manga-image-translator | Google Lens | BallonsTranslator | Papago | Yandex Translate | DeepL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebApp upload | Yes. Add images, a folder, a ZIP, a CBZ or a PDF (50 to 500 pages at once depending on the plan, 20 MB each), correct the result in Edit mode, and download single pages, a ZIP or one PDF. | Yes. The WebApp takes images, ZIPs and PDFs and works in mobile browsers. | Yes. The upload page on ichigoreader.com takes PDFs, ZIPs and images, with an auto-download option. | One you run yourself: a local web UI and an API. The README also links an official online demo, the Cotrans site, where you paste or drop one image at a time. | No chapter upload. In the Google app you can translate a photo or a screenshot from your gallery, one at a time. | No. It is a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux. | Yes: the Image tab on papago.naver.com takes JPG, PNG and GIF files after a Naver login, one image at a time. Papago Plus translates up to 100 images at once on the web. | Yes: translate.yandex.com/ocr takes one JPG, PNG or GIF image of up to 5 MB, with no sign-in, and shows it translated, with a download button and a text view. | Yes, as a file translation in beta: sign in, add PNG or JPG images of up to 3 MB, one image per file (several files at once), and download each image translated. Images inside a PDF are not translated. |
| Browser extension | Yes, in the Chrome Web Store (Chrome, Brave, Opera) and Edge Add-ons; a Firefox version is in review. It translates pages right on the sites you read: an R button per page, Auto mode while you scroll, show original, Translate an area, Edit image and a ZIP of the page's translations. | Yes: Chrome (and Edge, Brave, Opera), Firefox on desktop and Android, and Safari on Mac, iPad and iPhone. You point at an image on the page and click to translate it. | Yes, a Chrome extension (listed as Manga Translator, about 40,000 users, updated October 2026) that works on manga sites through its Unlocker or Panel Tool. There are also apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android. | No extension. A userscript (Cotrans) translates images on Pixiv, X, Misskey and Calckey, and does not work on every site. | Nothing to install: in Chrome on a computer you can open an image in Google Lens from the right-click menu, where Translate is one of the options. | No. | Only with Papago Plus: its Chrome extension translates an image on a web page when you click its icon, and you can download the result. The free Papago has no image extension. | No Chrome, Edge or Firefox extension for images that we could find. Yandex Browser has it built in: right-click an image to translate it, or translate all the images on a page. | DeepL's browser extension and desktop apps translate text. Their screen capture only reads the text out of an area; they do not re-letter the images on a web page. |
| Languages | From Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English and six more languages (or auto-detect) into 89 languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and French. Arabic and Thai output is experimental. | More than 140 languages according to Torii, with source detection and vertical Japanese. | Japanese, Chinese and Korean as sources; 18 target languages in the upload page's menu, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Thai and Vietnamese. | Mainly Japanese as the source, with Chinese, English, Korean and others; about two dozen target language codes. | More than 100 languages, according to Google. | Text recognition for Japanese, English and Korean; translation paths such as Japanese to English and to Chinese, plus what your chosen translator supports. | 14 languages for images, with source detection: Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Arabic. | 48 languages it can read in images, with automatic detection, according to the website. | All of DeepL's languages for image files. The mobile camera does not read Greek or Cyrillic. |
| Bubble-aware typesetting | Yes. Lettering in speech bubbles, caption boxes and text on the art is erased, the background filled in and the translation fitted in its place. Sound effects stay as drawn. Edit mode, in the WebApp and the extension, lets you move, restyle and rewrite the text. | Yes. AI inpainting removes the lettering and the translation is set inside each bubble, sized to fit, with an editor for fonts, position and effects. | Translated text is shown in bubbles over the page. Its pages do not describe how the original lettering is handled. | Yes. Inpainting models (such as LaMa) remove the text and a renderer sets the translation, including one made for manga into English. | Not built for speech bubbles. Lens is a general-purpose image translator, and how the translation is shown depends on the device. | Yes, and editable: inpainting (AOT, PatchMatch, LaMa), then a what-you-see-is-what-you-get text editor with fonts, presets and effects. | Naver describes its image translation as erasing the original text and drawing the translation in. Its pages do not mention speech bubbles, vertical Japanese or comics. | The text in the picture is replaced in place. In our test with a simple page, each line was translated on its own, so a sentence split over two lines lost its meaning. | DeepL says it extracts the text, translates it and embeds it back into the image. It does not mention speech bubbles or vertical Japanese and warns that stylized text may lower the quality. |
| Colorize | Soon Planned, not available yet. The colorizer is in development. | Yes, an AI colorizer in the WebApp, per page or per chapter. | Not mentioned on the pages we checked. | Yes, an optional colorizer (mc2). | No. | Not mentioned in the project's README. | No. | No. | No. |
| Translation engine | RuneLingua, our own AI translator for manga dialogue, on every plan, Free included. A few languages it does not cover well yet use another translation service. You can also connect your own AI key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, xAI or OpenRouter). | A choice of AI models such as Gemini, GPT, Claude, DeepSeek and Grok, with custom prompts and glossaries, or your own API key. | A choice of AI models. One is available on the free tier; the others are locked to paid Tier 1 and Tier 2. | Your choice: DeepL, ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Papago and others with your own keys, or offline models such as Sugoi, NLLB and M2M100. Google is listed as temporarily disabled. | Google's own translation. | Your choice: Google, DeepL, Papago, Sugoi (offline, Japanese to English), Sakura and other offline models, or any OpenAI-compatible model. | Naver's own Papago translation. | Yandex's own translation. | DeepL's own translation. |
| Pricing | Credits, 1 per page. Free at $0: 20 credits a day, claimed on the site, plus 30 once at sign-up that never expire. Supporter ($2.99, 1,000 a month), Pro ($4.99, 2,500) and Ultimate ($9.99, 5,000) are on sale now, with packs of 1,000, 2,500 or 6,000 credits that never expire. | Credit packs, no subscription, credits do not expire. The smallest listed pack is 2,500 credits for $5.99; a page costs one scanning credit plus a translation cost that depends on the amount of text. | A subscription with a free trial. The App Store lists Tier 1 at $8.99 and Tier 2 at $24.99; the billing period is not stated there. | Free and open source (GPL-3.0). You pay for your own hardware and for any translation API you use. | Free. | Free and open source (GPL-3.0). | Free Papago allows 30 images a month on the website with a login. Papago Plus is a monthly subscription: Basic $9.99, Standard $29.99 and Advanced $55.99 on the web, with a one-month trial. | Free on the website. Yandex does not publish a limit other than 5 MB per image. | An account is needed. While the feature is in beta, image files do not count toward the free plan's monthly file limit. DeepL Pro starts at €7.49 a month, billed yearly. |
| Privacy and retention | Pages are processed on RuneManga's servers; only the text found on the page goes to the translation engine. Jobs are deleted about an hour after they finish and are not used for training. | Images are processed in memory; some may be kept for a while in Google Cloud Storage for debugging, with no fixed period stated. Extracted text goes to the chosen AI provider. | Uploaded images go to Ichigo's servers and are kept "only as long as needed to provide and improve the Service", with no fixed period. The policy describes cloud hosting and logging providers and names Gumroad for payments. | Runs on your machine, so pages stay with you. Text leaves it only if you choose an online translator. | The image is sent to Google and handled under Google's privacy policy and your Google account settings. | Runs on your computer. Text leaves it only if you pick an online translator. | For the free Papago, Naver says data is used for learning with your consent. Papago Plus is described as having strict data security. | The Translate terms do not say how long uploaded images are kept. Yandex's general privacy policy covers using data to improve its products. | On the free plan, DeepL may keep texts for a limited time to train its models. On Pro, texts are not stored or used for training. |
| Sign-up needed | Yes for the WebApp: a free sign-in with Google, Discord or an emailed link, no card. | Yes for the free credits and the WebApp (no card needed). The editor can be tried without an account. | Not for the trial ("no registration required"). An account with email and password is optional. | No. | Not for basic use. | No. | Yes: image translation on the website needs a Naver account. | No. | Yes for image translation. |
Facts checked on October 29, 2026 from each tool's own pages and store listings. Something out of date? Write to [email protected].