Computer Aided Translation software comparison

I have been spending over 2 months to compare the following 3 products, maybe this comparison can help you to decide which product to buy:

The conclusion is based on my experience with the 3 products. If you want further information, I suggest you visit their web pages.

Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Editor
- package	own Editor	Ms Word plug in	own Editor
- looks like ...	word processor	word processor	excel
- bold/italic/underline formatting	yes	yes	no
- other formatting (font sizes,...)	no	yes	no
- context visible	yes	yes	not enough
- comments on project level	yes	yes	no
- comments on sentence level	yes	yes	no
- tags	graphical	text based in Word graphical in TagEditor	text based
- automatic font selection	yes	no	no
- color selection	yes	yes	no
- project exchange satellites	yes	no	yes
- connection to reference material	yes	no	no
- backup/restore facilities	yes	no	no
- connection to Machine Translation	yes	yes	no


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Translation Memory Search (Fuzzy Matching)
- 'fuzzy matching' quality	9/10	9/10	6/10
- search results on the same screen	yes	yes	no
- difference marking	yes	yes	yes
- automatic search	yes	yes	no
- multiple TM's	yes	yes	no
- speed (TU = Translation Unit)
* 50.000 TU's in TM	10/10	10/10	10/10
* 100.000 TU's in TM	9/10	9/10	8/10
* 300.000 TU's in TM	9/10	8/10	7/10
- concordance search	yes	yes	yes
- percentages shown	yes	yes	no
- external matches	yes	yes	yes
- internal matches	yes	no	no
- penalties for formatting, tags,...	yes	yes	no
- substitution of numbers	yes	yes	no


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Terminology Search
- search results on the same screen	yes	yes	no
- multiple words	yes	yes	yes
- automatic search	yes	yes	no
- multiple Terminology databases	yes	yes	no


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Translation Memory Management
- global search/replace	yes	yes	yes
- Translation Unit Edit	yes	yes	yes
- attributes (time, creator, ...)	yes	yes	yes
- import/export types
- TMX	yes	yes (only level1)	yes (only level1)
- Excel (Comma Delimited)	yes	no	yes
- Trados Format	yes	yes	yes
- DejaVu Format	yes	no	yes
- TransIt Format	no	no	no
- IBM TM2	no	no	no
- Trans Suite 2000 Format	yes	no	no
- Ms Access	yes	no	yes


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Terminology Management
- global search/replace	yes	yes	yes
- source/target definitions	yes	yes	yes
- multimedia objects	yes	yes	no
- multiple targets	yes	yes	no
- import/export types
- Excel (Comma Delimited)	yes	no	yes
- Trados Format	yes	yes	yes
- DejaVu Format	yes	no	yes
- TransIt Format	yes	no	no
- IBM TM2	no	no	no
- Trans Suite 2000 Format	yes	no	no
- Ms Access	yes	no	yes


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Document Filters
- speed	10/10	10/10	6/10
- average filter quality	9/10	9/10	8/10
- document types
- Ms Word / RTF	yes	yes	yes
- Ms PowerPoint	yes	needs T-Window*	yes
- Ms Access	yes	no	no
- OpenTag	yes	no	no
- HTML / SGML	yes	yes	yes
- Windows Resource (RC)	yes	yes (TagEditor)	yes
- ANSI	yes	yes	yes
- Help RTF / CNT	yes	yes	yes
- Ms Office 2000 HTML	yes	???	???
- WordPerfect 6/7/8/2000	yes	no	no
- FrameMaker (MIF)	needs S-Tagger*	needs S-Tagger*	yes
- Interleaf	needs S-Tagger*	needs S-Tagger*	yes
- QuarkXpress	needs ITP Pack*	needs ITP Pack*	yes
- PageMaker	needs ITP Pack*	needs ITP Pack*	yes
- Ventura	needs ITP Pack*	needs ITP Pack*	needs ITP Pack*
- Trados Projects	yes	yes	yes
- DejaVu Projects	no	no	yes
- Trans Suite 2000 Projects	yes	no	no
- Filter for personal development	yes	no	no

*The ITP Filter Pack is for free, but T-Window, S-Tagger are not.


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Align Tool
- document types	all (see above)	only RTF and HTML	all (see above)
- keyboard shortcuts	yes	no	yes
- limited on number of files	no	yes	no
- block selections	yes	no	no
- join/split sentence	yes	no	yes
- edit translation unit	yes	yes	yes
- auto align	limited	yes	no


Subject	CYPRESOFT TRANS Suite 2000	TRADOS Freelance Edition	Atril DejaVu
Other
- Updates	Free	Pay	Free
- Support	9/10	6/10	9/10
- Easy to create projects	10/10	8/10	8/10
- Easy to re-create documents	9/10	8/10	8/10
- Easy to Install	9/10	8/10	9/10
- Easy to uninstall	7/10	8/10	8/10
- Networked version available	yes	yes	no

Already after a couple of hours, I noticed that DejaVu wasn't really the product I was looking for. The interface is too much like Excel, the filters are slow and the fuzzy-matching isn't really what you would expect from such an engine.

I hope this comparison can help translators in making up their own decision of which product to buy.