The system includes translation memory, machine translation, glossary management, the function of translator collaboration on a single document. It is designed for companies (including translation agencies) and translators-freelancers. In its standard version Smartcat is a cloud-based platform and can be installed on a computer.

A user can work with the software using a browser. It belongs to different software categories such as automatic translation systems, globalization management systems and freelance service marketplaces.

Smartcat supports different input formats, including text documents, presentations, tables, scanned documents and images (providing a paid-for recognition service for the latter), HTML pages, files of resources, standardized two-language formats.