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Cyr-To-Lat

By Sergey Biryukov

Site Administration & Utilities / URL Redirects & 301 Management

Reviewed by Omar Dabbas

Trusted WordPress expert with 20+ years of experience evaluating plugins for the WP ecosystem.

Cyr-To-Lat Review - In-Depth Analysis

Convert Cyrillic characters in post, page, and term slugs to Latin characters for better readability.

Performance Overview

WPS Score

7.56/10

User Rating

4.7/5 (based on 98+ reviews)

Active Installations

300,000+

Update Frequency

Average It is calculated using the weighted average of same category plugins.

Security Score

1 / 10 (Very Low Risk) It is calculated using the weighted average of all versions.

What It Does

This plugin converts Cyrillic characters in post, page, and term slugs to Latin characters. It is useful for creating human-readable URLs that can enhance SEO and user experience.

The plugin features a fully editable transliteration table, allowing users to add, remove, and edit character pairs. For example, you can change 'Я' to 'Ya' or 'Пиво' to 'Beer'. It can convert any number of existing slugs in the background while maintaining the integrity of existing permalinks.

Additionally, it performs transliteration of attachment file names and supports various languages including Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Kazakh, Hebrew, and Chinese characters. The plugin is officially compatible with WPML.

Comparing to Alternatives

Cyr-To-Lat is one of several transliteration plugins that convert Cyrillic and other non-Latin characters into clean, readable Latin slugs. Compared to niche competitors, it stands out for its long track record, frequent updates, and broad language support across Slavic alphabets.

Top alternatives

Strengths

Wide adoption and strong average rating from a large user base
Regular updates addressing compatibility issues with themes and WooCommerce
Supports multiple Slavic languages beyond just Russian, including Ukrainian, Belorussian, Bulgarian, and Kazakh
Clean, well-maintained codebase with an active development history

Weaknesses

Does not support non-Slavic scripts like Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, or Chinese
No granular control to exclude specific taxonomies like tags or categories from transliteration

User Sentiment Analysis

With 98 ratings and an overwhelming 86.7% at 5 stars, sentiment toward Cyr-To-Lat is strongly positive. Only 6.1% of reviews fall into the 1-2 star range, suggesting the plugin reliably does its core job for the vast majority of users.

Positive highlights

"Отличный плагин, регулярные обновления" — praised for regular updates that quickly fix compatibility issues, according to grisym
"Ура! Заработало!" — vl33 reports that attribute transliteration now works correctly after a recent update
"Плагін Cyr-To-Lat відмінно працює на моєму WooCommerce магазині" — Theposudka recommends it specifically for WooCommerce stores
alexmcmeekin2017 still rated it 5 stars despite noting limited language support, reflecting overall trust in the plugin's core functionality

Common complaints

Weaknesses

Occasional temporary bugs with specific theme integrations (e.g., Woodmart) following version updates
Lacks support for some non-Slavic character sets, limiting usefulness for a global audience
No option to disable transliteration selectively for tags or categories

Who Should Use This?

Best for

Cyr-To-Lat is ideal for WordPress site owners running content in Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Belorussian, or other Slavic languages who need clean, SEO-friendly Latin-character URL slugs. It's especially useful for WooCommerce stores and blogs where readable permalinks matter.

Not ideal for

Sites relying on non-Slavic scripts such as Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, or Chinese should look elsewhere, as these are not supported. Users needing fine-grained control over which taxonomies get transliterated may also find the current settings too limited.

Pricing & Value

Free version includes

The free version offers full transliteration functionality for supported Slavic languages, covering posts, pages, menus, tags, categories, and WooCommerce attributes, with no feature gating observed in user feedback.

Final Verdict

Cyr-To-Lat earns its strong 4.7-star rating through consistent performance, active maintenance, and broad support for Slavic-language transliteration needs. With zero known vulnerabilities and a clean WPScan security history, it's a safe, low-risk choice for converting Cyrillic and related scripts into readable URL slugs. Minor complaints center on temporary theme compatibility hiccups and the lack of support for non-Slavic alphabets, but these are edge cases rather than dealbreakers for its core audience.

Given the absence of a premium tier, users get the full feature set for free, and the plugin's maturity shows in how quickly reported issues get resolved in subsequent updates. For Slavic-language WordPress sites, especially WooCommerce stores, Cyr-To-Lat remains a dependable, well-regarded solution with few direct alternatives matching its combination of reliability, language coverage, and community trust.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Cyr-To-Lat plugin.

Cyrillic

Slugs

Transliteration

Screenshots

FAQ

Add this code to your theme’s functions.php file:

/**  * Modify conversion table.  *  * @param array $table Conversion table.  *  * @return array  */ function my_ctl_table( $table ) {    $table['Ъ'] = 'U';    $table['ъ'] = 'u';     return $table; } add_filter( 'ctl_table', 'my_ctl_table' );

For instance, if your non-standard locale is uk_UA, you can redefine it to uk by adding the following code to your theme’s function.php file:

/**  * Use non-standard locale.  *  * @param string $locale Current locale.  *  * @return string  */ function my_ctl_locale( $locale ) {     if ( 'uk_UA' === $locale ) {         return 'uk';     }      return $locale; } add_filter( 'ctl_locale', 'my_ctl_locale' );

Add similar code to your theme’s functions.php file:

/**  * Filter title before sanitizing.  *  * @param string|false $result Sanitized title.  * @param string       $title  Title.  *  * @return string|false  */ function my_ctl_pre_sanitize_title( $result, $title ) {     if ( 'пиво' === $title ) {         return 'beer';     }      return $result; } add_filter( 'ctl_pre_sanitize_title', 10, 2 );

Add similar code to your theme’s functions.php file:

/**  * Filter filename before sanitizing.  *  * @param string|false $result   Sanitized filename.  * @param string       $filename Title.  *  * @return string|false  */ function my_ctl_pre_sanitize_filename( $result, $filename ) {     if ( 'пиво' === $filename ) {         return 'beer';     }      return $result; } add_filter( 'ctl_pre_sanitize_filename', 10, 2 );

Add the following code to your plugin’s (or mu-plugin’s) main file. This code won’t work being added to a theme’s functions.php file.

/**  * Filter status allowed Cyr To Lat plugin to work.  *  * @param bool $allowed  *  * @return bool  */ function my_ctl_allow( bool $allowed ): bool {     $uri = isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ?         sanitize_url( wp_unslash( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ) :         '';      if ( 0 === strpos( $uri, '/divi-comments' ) ) {         return true;     }      return $allowed; }  add_filter( 'ctl_allow', 'my_ctl_allow' );

Add similar code to your theme’s functions.php file:

/**  * Filter post types allowed for background conversion.  *  * @param array $post_types Allowed post types.  *  * @return array  */ function my_ctl_post_types( $post_types ) {     return [         'post'          => 'post',         'page'          => 'page',         'attachment'    => 'attachment',         'product'       => 'product',         'nav_menu_item' => 'nav_menu_item',     ]; } add_filter( 'ctl_post_types', 'my_ctl_post_types' );

Use the following command in the console:

wp cyr2lat regenerate [--post_type=<post_type>] [--post_status=<post_status>]

Where
-post_type is a list of post types,
-post_status is a list of post statuses.

Regeneration of thumbnails with the command wp media regenerate can break links in old posts as file names become transliterated.

To avoid it, deactivate the cyr2lat plugin during regeneration:

wp media regenerate --skip-plugins=cyr2lat

Version 7.0 uses explicit slug handlers for posts, terms, WooCommerce attributes, and other known save paths. A legacy sanitize_title bridge remains as a compatibility fallback for broad calls that older integrations may still rely on.

You can disable the broad fallback with this code:

add_filter( 'ctl_enable_legacy_sanitize_title_bridge', '__return_false' );

The filter receives the current default value, $title, $raw_title, and $context. Explicit known contexts, such as WordPress save handling, continue to use the dedicated 7.0 slug paths.

For debugging unknown bridge calls, define CYR_TO_LAT_DEBUG_LEGACY_SANITIZE_TITLE_BRIDGE as true. This diagnostic log is disabled by default and is not enabled by WP_DEBUG.