{"id":5502,"date":"2024-11-22T08:15:35","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T08:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poeditor.com\/blog\/?p=5502"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:42:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:42:42","slug":"plantnet-localization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poeditor.com\/blog\/plantnet-localization\/","title":{"rendered":"Planting the seeds of global reach: Pl@ntNet’s localization journey with POEditor"},"content":{"rendered":"
Case study highlights<\/div>

50 languages<\/h4>

Citizen science made accessible to plant lovers around the world.<\/p><\/div>

400+ contributors<\/span><\/h4>

Crowdsourced translations from a global community.<\/p><\/div>

Open source projects<\/span><\/h4>

Full-featured localization with unlimited languages and contributors.<\/p><\/div>

Automated workflows<\/span><\/h4>

Automated data exports cutting down manual translation effort.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pl@ntNet<\/a>, a citizen science platform dedicated to plant biodiversity, takes the place of a botanist. People can use the Pl@ntNet app to identify and learn about different types of plants and all the pictures people upload to this app are gathered and examined by researchers worldwide to better understand and conserve plant biodiversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Users’ contributions is what matters most for Pl@ntNet, as they strive to incorporate all 360.000 species living on earth. Thus, it is important for them to make the app available to people all over the world. As the platform started to gain global popularity, the demand for language support grew exponentially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this regard, they mentioned they found a match in the localization management platform POEditor, which provided them with an interface that was easy to use both for them and for the people who joined their project’s translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing worth noting about Pl@ntNet is that it is an open source initiative and it is not focused on obtaining revenue. Thus, POEditor provided them with the means to localize their project for free<\/a> into unlimited languages and with as many contributors as they needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges: managing large volumes of user-generated content across languages<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before setting up their localization process <\/a>with POEditor, the team at Pl@ntNet was trying to find a way to speed up said process. Having used Google Sheet as their main resource, they recognized it as “rapidly becoming a bad idea”. Relying on Google Sheets for translation management was a time-consuming and error-prone process, as it lacked version control and a way to track changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, for this translation to actually happen, they needed a place to gather translators and to offer them the tools to provide high quality translations. For this, they chose POEditor, where they crowdsourced<\/a> the translation of their app and the result is the staggering number of over 400 contributors added to several languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, as the app’s popularity grew, so did the demand for new languages. Managing a large number of languages and translators manually proved to be a daunting task. In this case, they were looking for a platform where they could add as many languages and translators as they wanted, with no additional costs, thanks to the Open Source initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solutions: centralizing localization for better collaboration and automation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What Pl@ntNet found appealing about POEditor was the user-friendly interface, the possibility of managing open source projects for free, the localization robust API<\/a> and the ease with which they could order professional human translations when this was necessary for their project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here are some key improvements our platform brought to their localization efforts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n