Download Top 16 Best Subtitle Editors for FREE

As the resident video editor for my office, there were many times when I needed a video editing software that could do the various editing jobs all in one place. Movavi Video Editor has always been my go-to since I discovered it because of its wide range of functions and its easy interface that makes the whole process intuitive and straightforward.

Movavi Video Editor has an automatic subtitles generation feature that transcribes captions from your chosen language, but the software also offers to detect the language itself. You can customize the subs by changing the text, fonts, colors, and position, among other things. Then you can choose whether to embed the subs into the video or to save them as soft subtitles.

As a popular video editing software, Movavi is well-maintained and gets updated regularly so you can bet on smooth performance. On October 2, 2025, they came out with 30+ fresh subtitle styles and instant caption translation into English in just one click.

My experience with Vmaker AI has been mostly positive, mainly because I can use it to get polished results without having to wrestle with a complicated interface and confusing tools. Vmaker AI video editor comes with an AI subtitle generator. Just upload your video to Vmaker AI to generate subtitles in 35+ languages and translate them into 100+ languages, allowing you to reach people from any corner of the world. You can also customize the color, font, size, animation, and style of the subtitles to your liking.

I found Typito when I was looking for a quick and easy web-based tool that could add text to my video with a little extra creative flair. The web-based tool delivered exactly what I was looking for, offering over 500 text templates and animations that offered to take captions to the next level.

Typito’s drag-and-drop workflow makes editing videos and adding text intuitive and highly visual. It also provides a brand kit function that lets you define your brand in case you want to use your output for your business. If you’re adding subtitles to a video, Typito also has AI-generated captions that automatically sync to your video.

Although they keep their latest updates on the down-low, Typito actively posts on their blog to keep users updated on the latest trends and video editing topics. They also still get lots of reviews in 2025, so we know their web-based service is still well-loved and well-maintained.

The original Subtitle Workshop was retired a while back, but I was happy to find the new Subtitle Workshop Classic which breathes new life into its discontinued counterpart. The program features the same, organized interface that’s fairly easy to understand at a glance. It also offers a waveform timeline, real-time video preview, and error detection tools to help make your captions more accurate.

What I like most about this free subtitle editor is that it works with over 60 different subtitle file formats. So if you need to edit a sub file that’s rare, you can almost be sure that Subtitle Workshop Classic can decode it. The program was last updated early in 2025, with bug fixes that aim to improve performance and overall user experience.

To be clear, VideoProc Converter AI doesn’t have an auto-captioning feature that generates subtitles from scratch. Instead, it lets you import subtitles and edit them to go with your video, or create new subtitles manually by adding and syncing text to your video. This comes in handy for instructional footage that doesn’t have dialogue but needs subtext to make instructions clearer and easier to understand.

What I like about VideoProc Converter AI is that it has a subtitle search feature that lets you find SRT files across the web from the program itself. As an AI-powered tool, VideoProc tries to stay ahead of the competition by keeping its program updated with the latest AI features relevant in 2025. And since it’s heavy on AI, we might expect AI-supported speech-to-text soon.

I’ll admit that Aegisub has a bit of a learning curve. But once you know your way around, it can become a powerful tool. This subtitles editor lets you control every frame of text, from timing to placement, and font color, size, outline, and even animation. Aegisub has a range of effects that you can apply to make stylized captions, which is helpful if you want your on-screen text to look just as entertaining as the video itself.

There was a dormant period for Aegisub between 2014 and 2024 when developers kind of put its updates on hold. But this year, Aegisub has come out with new releases and bug fixes that make it a refreshed, strong contender for the best free subtitle editing program on the scene today.

There are times when I don’t really need all the fancy features that come with complete video editing and subtitle generation tools, and that’s when I turn to platforms like Kapwing. They offer a web-based subtitle generation tool that leverages the power of AI for speech-to-text functionality. The platform also lets you edit the generated text or type your subtitles manually.

The whole process is fairly easy and happens entirely online. Just add your video, generate, type or import your subtitles, and then download the resulting SRT file. They recently came out with an update in May 2025 that lets you import directly from cloud storage services like Google Drive and Vimeo for a totally cloud-based process.

I first tried Subtitle Edit when I was tasked to add captions to a video that was two hours long. I needed something that was more precise and wouldn’t require too much adjusting since I would have to watch the entire length of the video to tweak minor timing inconsistencies. Subtitle Edit worked like a charm for that task, and I’ve used it ever since for longer projects.

The program uses speech recognition engines like Google Cloud Speech API to automatically create subtitles from your video’s audio. It also offers auto-translation and spell check. What I like the most about it is its waveform and spectrogram viewers that let you easily scan your video’s audio and sync subtitles precisely where its corresponding dialogue occurs.

Subtitle Edit is one of the most popular SRT software out there, so its developers try to keep it regularly updated. They recently came out with version 4.0.13 which rolled out bug fixes and performance upgrades for a smoother user experience.

Clipchamp was originally released in 2013 but has since been acquired by Microsoft in 2021. And as a Microsoft-owned tool, Clipchamp provides a clean, intuitive interface that’s straightforward and easy to understand. To generate subtitles, all you need to do is upload your video, choose your subtitle language, and adjust the text’s font, color, and alignment. You can also download the transcript as SRT.

Certain features make Clipchamp stand out, including their filter feature that removes profanity and offensive language. All of these, plus their recently released AI noise suppression feature, help produce clear, accurate captions and sound.

I’ve had some experience with Clideo in the past, and I’ve always been pleased with its simple interface. The web-based platform offers a load of video editing tools, including an Add Subtitles feature. This option lets you upload SRT subtitle files to your video, or add text manually. Then you have the option to edit your subtitle font, size, color, background, and alignment to get the right look for your needs.

If you plan to apply other edits to your video, like adding filters, cutting, or merging, you can also get it all done with Clideo. As a web-based tool, this platform works best for shorter clips. And while they don’t have a published changelog, they regularly update their blog and sometimes mention recent updates.

I tried exploring Submagic a while back for short-form video content for my company, and I have to say that the tool is pretty reliable. The web-based platform offers to add text or captions to your videos, with emphasis on use for social media. They have stylized subtitles with animations that you can add to your automatically-generated text.

The platform also has tools like trimming, transitions, and extraction that helps you shorten longer videos to include just the highlights. In a recent update, Submagic rolled out support for over 52 new languages so users from around the globe can enjoy its features.

Happy Scribe was one of the most prominent subtitle editors that kept popping up during my search, so I just had to give it a try. This browser-based program offers transcription, subtitle generation, and translation services that are essentially the basics of subtitle editing. It can generate subtitles from your video’s dialogue with its AI-powered speech-to-text, which you can then edit and format for better accuracy.

But that’s not even the best part. For an added fee, you can have real humans review your subtitles for accuracy. With that, I think Happy Scribe would work best for lengthy technical video projects with lots of jargon that requires a higher level of accuracy. Happy Scribe gets updates regularly, and even rolled out an AI notetaker to transcribe meeting notes in real time.

Just like other browser-based tools, I found VEED to be a great choice for quick, one-time tasks that didn’t require such heavy editing. It’s generally a video editing tool, but it also offers automated subtitle generation by using AI speech-to-text functions. The platform has translation support for over 100 languages, and also offers dynamic subtitle animations to make your videos more engaging.

VEED utilizes a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop workflow and offers different styles and effects for visually interesting captions. It’s a pretty new platform, and updates are frequent to make sure users get a smooth, hitch-free user experience with regular performance and stability updates.

DaVinci Resolve was able to provide me with a highly precise editing experience that gave me frame-by-frame level control over my subtitles. Aside from letting you import subtitle files to your project, DaVinci Resolve also has powerful AI speech-to-text features that produce impressively accurate captions.

You can then edit and style the subtitles with frame-level accuracy so they appear and change at exactly the right time. DaVinci Resolve also streamlines the text-styling process, letting you position your subs anywhere on the screen. As a fully equipped video editing program, DaVinci Resolve supports multiple subtitle tracks if you want your video to be understood in more than one language.

The new DaVinci Resolve 20 came out just this year and introduced over 100 new features including AI tools that provide assistance at every step of your workflow.

Kdenlive is one of those highly versatile open-source video editing programs that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Personally, I was impressed with how robust the program was when I first tried it, especially considering the fact that it’s free. For making and editing subtitles, Kdenlive comes with a dedicated subtitle track that lets you adjust the timing of your subs alongside the video and audio tracks for improved control.

The program also has a subtitle panel that lets you adjust and edit the sub text much easier. In recent updates, Kdenlive has released experimental automatic subtitle generation using speech-to-text functions based on Vosk and Whisper. Subtitle styling is also available, giving options for font, size, color, background, position, and spacing.

Now, let me be perfectly clear – OpenShot’s capacity to add subtitles to your videos isn’t automated. So there’s no option to just auto-generate captions with just a click. But I included it in this list anyway because it offers a more precise way of adding captions for projects that call for a clearer understanding of what’s happening in the video like instructional or educational material.

To add subtitles to your video with OpenShot, you’ll have to add a title and edit the text as you want it to appear in the video. Then adjust the font, color, and alignment before saving the title so it appears in the project files panel. Then you can duplicate the text and move it along the timeline so it lines up where you want it to appear. Then continue on editing the subs and duplicating as necessary.

It’s not the fastest way to make subtitles. But for precision projects that need a lot of explanatory captions, I find that it works and provides the greatest flexibility and control. And because OpenShot is a robust software, expect it to handle bigger video files, with newer versions supporting hardware acceleration to reduce your CPU’s workload.