SDL Reviews 

I understand that I signed some terms and conditions and that it is my responsibility to cancel the subscription, but if I kindly ask them to make an exception—since I am not going to use SDL Trados Studio after the free version (as soon as I realize the charge, I cancel the subscription and contact them)—they should take a bit more care of freelance translators, for whom that amount of money really matters, as they depend on us. If I don’t have projects, I’m not going to use the program; they can even block my access. The reminder emails asking whether I wanted to cancel the free subscription were sent to my work email, which I obviously didn’t check because I was on Christmas holidays. Instead of making an exception, they hide behind the terms and conditions. From now on, I will use another CAT tool.

I've been using Trados for more than 2 years now, as some of my clients request it. And honestly, I’m amazed by how much time it still manages to waste —and how angry it can still make me.

Don’t use Trados if you can avoid it. Run away, don’t look back. Don’t waste your time or money. Why?

- It’s incredibly complicated and not user-friendly at all. Every small action takes a ridiculous number of steps. For example, if you want to copy all the text from the target language column, you can’t just select and copy —you have to export it into Excel first. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
-It messes up text formatting constantly, especially italics.
-It messes up apostrophes too. If you work with Catalan or French, this becomes a real problem.
-It crashes and freezes often. The worst part? It will make you lose a lot of time, regularly and with no warning.
-It’s absurdly expensive for what it offers.

I’m currently looking for other tools because I’m honestly sick of it.

This is the only review I’ve ever written on Trustpilot. That should tell you everything about how much this software grinds my gears.

MALWARE UNABLE TO UNINSTALL
DO NOT INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE THI IS MADE TO BE UNABLE TO BE UNINSTALLED DO NOT INSTALL THIS GARBAGE

Crashes most of the time, and suddenly does not get installed on the computer anymore because of some requirements. Real headache. I am better off with other platforms such Memsource or MemoQ

My biggest issue with Trados is poor optimization and absence of 64-bit version. With large projects Trados becomes more often a crashing and slow grinding nuisance, rather than help :P

I bought SDL Trados software several years ago, believing I would be able to use it forever. In August 2022 I received an email saying that "License resets no longer available" for my version of software, effectively meaning I am forced to buy a new version of their software if I move to a new computer or need to reinstall Windows for any reason.

There are few meaningful updates from the 2014 version to the new version, it's basically the same thing with a few tweaks, and a new version is nearly $1,000. Where does this leave translators who work part time or live in countries where rates are low? Except for this unfair decision by SDL, I have no reason to buy their new version!

I will never give SDL another dime as thankfully there are now other competing programs such as MemoQ and Trados no longer has a monopoly. It's a desperate and unethical financial move by a company that has always offered poor customer support and attempted to corner the market by brute force. Good riddance.

I really love their software. It's far from perfect, but better than most other CAT tools in the market. (CAT = Computer-Aided Translation). But unless you buy an expensive service contract, you receive no help with bugs or errors whatsoever. And their customer support is a disgrace. It is extremely difficult to find contact data. Essentially, you can only ask a question via their online form, but whenever I used this in the past, I received no response.
Two weeks ago, I bought the upgrade to their new version of the software I am using. When I asked when the upgrade will be released, I received no answer either, neither via the online form nor via a reply to the order confirmation, which is, according to the email, what I should do when I had a question. I am simply left dangling. Coronavirus crisis yes or no - if a company can sell products, it should at least be able to react to customer requests as well. I was prepared to wait for an answer, but two weeks, or rather, no answer after two weeks, is unacceptable.