# 5 JavaScript internationalization libraries that look interesting

I've been in angular(.js) bubble for a pretty long time. During this, I was happily using some framework-specific tools for managing translations - mostly [angular-translate](https://angular-translate.github.io/). Unfortunately, those tools are limited to the framework and don't help in another context.

# Key considerations
What I liked about the setup I had so far:
* short key names - I prefer `t('abstract_keys')` over `t('The source language message')`, as it takes less space in the code
* JSON translation files. With abstract keys, they could even be scoped by adding dots to the translation keys
* tooling for automatically extracting keys from source code & adding them to all language files

On top of that, now I want framework independent solution. Internationalization (i18n) is a problem complex enough to have some serious thinking invested in it, and it's completely unrelated to problems solved by JS frameworks.

# First impressions
I did a quick search to see what's out there. Some libraries seemed very suspicious just by the look by the websites; others failed to point towards covering points I listed above.

## [i18next](https://www.i18next.com/)
i18next looks the most impressive - it looks more like a translation ecosystem than just an i18n library. I would need to experiment with it a bit to really tell how well it delivers its promises, but definitively it is at least trying to address all my considerations.

## [polyglot.js](https://airbnb.io/polyglot.js/)
A library from Airbnb - they do well with i18n, so it's worth taking a look.

## [LinguiJS](https://lingui.js.org/)
At least the documentation looks like from the current decade. It can be worth checking.

## [fluent](https://projectfluent.org/)
A solution that tries to cover all possible edge cases of applying genders, complex plurals for languages with less straightforward grammar - for example, Polish. 

## [Rosetta](https://github.com/lukeed/rosetta)

> A general purpose internationalization library in 292 bytes 

I want to see it in action! And how far you can get with such a minimalistic solution.

# And you?
What are your thoughts about i18n in JS? Any library you would recommend me to add or remove from my list?