The traditional localization approach is very time intensive, and requires a large time commitment to implement properly. Localize.js automates most of the localization process, which lets you localize your site in ~10% of the time it would normally take.

The traditional way you'd localize a website is by replacing text in your template files with string keys. For example:

<h1>Hello world!</h1> .

becomes...

<h1>{{ t 'homepage.hello_world' }}</h1>

You'd then maintain dictionary files that maps "homepage.hello_world" to "Hello world!", with a separate dictionary for each language. Additional complications arise when you want to pluralize phrases, since different languages pluralize phrases differently, etc. It's a pain to setup an effective localization workflow using the traditional approach.

Localize.js handles all of this automatically, and removes the need to convert your template files or manage your own phrases and translations. If you're interested in trying it out, I'd love to get in touch :) bp@brandonpaton.com