A memoQ alternative for freelance translators

The short answer

If your agencies send memoQ XLIFF files (.mqxlz or .mqxliff), you can do the work in Lexora Studio and send back what they expect. Lexora Studio also opens memoQ handoff packages (.mqout). If they give you access to memoQ server projects, you need memoQ.

We make Lexora Studio, a CAT tool that competes with memoQ. Read this with that in mind. What we say about memoQ comes from memoQ’s public documentation, checked on 8 October 2026. What we say about Lexora is about version 0.5.2.

memoQ files Lexora Studio opens

A memoQ job in Lexora Studio, step by step

1. Open the filesCreate a project and drop in the .mqxlz or .mqxliff. Lexora reads the languages and picks the files to translate.
2. Add the client’s memory and glossaryImport the TMX and the TBX or CSV the agency gave you, or your own. Each client gets a separate memory.
3. Translate and confirmMatches, fragments and glossary terms appear beside the sentence you are on. Press Tab to take the next word from your memory, Ctrl+Enter to confirm.
4. CheckNumbers, tags, terms and punctuation are checked as you go, for the way your target language writes them.
5. Export for the agencyChoose “Return package for memoQ · .mqxlz” (the memoQ XLIFF file the agency imports back) and send it the way the agency asked.

What Lexora Studio doesn’t do

• It doesn’t connect to memoQ server projects. It works with the files you are sent.
• It doesn’t read memoQ’s own memory and termbase files. Use TMX for memories and CSV, Excel or TBX for term bases.
• Its word count is its own. If your fee depends on the agency’s analysis, go by that.
• It runs only on Windows 10 and 11.

When memoQ is worth buying

This is our opinion. If your agencies run their projects on a memoQ server and give you access there, memoQ is the tool for that work, and Lexora can’t replace it. The same goes if most of your work is memoQ packages and you rely on what memoQ itself does with them.

If memoQ jobs come now and then, among Word files, Trados packages and other formats, we think one tool that opens all of them can be enough. That is the case we built Lexora Studio for.

Bringing your memoQ work with you

• Your memoriesExport them from memoQ as TMX and import them. Lexora tells you exactly what came in and what was skipped.
• Your termbasesExport them from memoQ as CSV or Excel, or as TBX from Qterm. TBX notes and forbidden terms are kept.
• Your shortcutsChange any keyboard shortcut to the keys your hands already know.
• Old translationsHave the source and the translation but no memory? Align the two files into a new one.

What we tested

On 7 October 2026 we round-tripped 1,268 files through Lexora Studio 0.5.2. Only one of them came from memoQ: a memoQ 10 .mqxliff export that someone published, and it came back with every translation in place. Our automated tests also open and export .mqxlz files, but we made those files ourselves. We haven’t yet tested an .mqxlz file an agency made in memoQ. If one doesn’t open, write to us and we’ll fix it. The full test: We round-tripped 1,268 files through Lexora.

Questions about using Lexora instead of memoQ

Read next

• Trados alternativeOpen .sdlppx packages and send back the .sdlrpx.
• Translation memoryHow Lexora’s memory works, and bringing yours along.

memoQ and the other product names are trademarks of their owners, used here only to name their products. Lexora Studio is independent of these companies and not endorsed by them.