Is it also the superior product? It depends on your use-case. I always prefer it over Google Translate since it is much more accurate and keeps the overall accuracy and tone for longer texts, which Translate does not.
🌟 Precision & Natural Flow
DeepL’s AI excels in delivering translations that sound like they were written by a human. It captures idioms, tone, and context beautifully, especially in languages like German, French, or Spanish. Google often translates word-for-word, leading to clunky or literal results.
📚 Context Matters
DeepL allows you to highlight specific words for alternative translations, making it perfect for refining technical, creative, or formal texts. Google’s one-size-fits-all approach struggles with subtle differences in meaning.
🔒 Privacy Focus
DeepL prioritizes user privacy by anonymizing data and avoiding ad-targeting practices. Since the company behind it, DeepL SE, is based in Germany, it also profits from higher privacy from an ideology perspective (we germans love keeping our data safe & private). Google, while improving, still ties translations to user accounts for broader data collection.
💡 Extra Features
From customizable formality levels (e.g., formal vs. informal English) to seamless document translation, DeepL offers tools that cater to professionals and casual users alike.
✍️ DeepL Write Aren‘t the best writer? DeepL Write can help you paraphrase your own sentences and make them more structured, friendly or professional. Try it for your next work Email!
TL;DR: Google is faster and offers more languages. But for quality, nuance, and privacy, DeepL is unmatched. By using it, you also help an european company train their models instead of Googles. Give it a try, you will not be disappointed!
Not disagreeing with anything OP said, but one downside with DeepL is that it is not great as a lexicon. Basically, if you want to translate one single word instead of a longer text, as can be useful for example if you run into a word you do not know in a language which you otherwise have some grasp of. However, Google is neither good at this. One site/app/company that is good at it though is the French site/app/company Reverso. Hence, if you based on this post try DeepL and notice that it does not really suit your needs, like happened to me, so is that no need to go back to Google.
If you want to translate single words, the English Wiktionary is often a good option.
Edit: if you need multi-language to multi-language, the English Wiktionary will only give you multi-language to English. However, like its sister project Wikipedia, there are other Wiktionaries for that. For instance, the French Wiktionary is multi-language to French.
Deepl is the same company as linguee, which is a dictionary that shows you examples of the words in actual text, so you get the context.
For word translation I use Wordreference (unfortunately not European). It is especially helpful with idioms and with combined forms. (I use En/Fr)
I'll give reverso another try, but the in context only approach doesn't always appeal to me.
To translate single words, I'd suggest you use a real dictionary, as they tend to provide much more options and a bigger nuance. Also the option to quickly translate the suggestions back again to see what the nuanced meaning is, helps a lot. I use leo.org for that.
If you know the language , but not the specific word, I suggest a single language dictionary such as the OED
And if I'm translating from my native language into a foreign one, the"other languages" link in Wikipedia has often helped me. Especially for technical terms it helps a lot to find the correct native page first. For example, a normal dictionary wouldn't be too helpful to find out that a Hund in German is called a derail in English.