SRT vs VTT vs Burned-In Captions: Which Should You Use?

When you export captions, you’ll usually choose between an SRT file, a VTT file, or captions burned into the video itself. Each has a place. Here’s how to choose.

SRT (SubRip)

SRT is the most common caption file format. It’s plain text: a number, a time range and the caption text.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,500
And so, my fellow Americans,

Use SRT for: YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vimeo, video editors (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut via import), and most desktop players.

Limitations: minimal styling support; positioning and colours aren’t standard.

VTT (WebVTT)

WebVTT is the web standard for captions in HTML5 video. It looks similar to SRT, starts with a WEBVTT header and uses a dot for milliseconds.

WEBVTT

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:03.500
And so, my fellow Americans,

Use VTT for: videos on your own website with the <track> element, many web video players, and platforms that ask for WebVTT.

Extras: VTT supports positioning, alignment and basic styling.

Burned-in (open) captions

Burned-in captions are drawn onto the video frames. They’re always visible and look exactly the same on every device.

Use burned-in captions for: Instagram Reels and Stories, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, ads, and anywhere the platform doesn’t support caption files — or when you want a specific style like word-by-word highlighting.

Limitations: viewers can’t turn them off, change size or switch language; the text isn’t searchable by the platform; and fixing a mistake means re-rendering the video.

Comparison

	SRT	VTT	Burned-in
Viewer can turn off	Yes	Yes	No
Styling	Basic	Some	Full control
Searchable by platform	Yes	Yes	No
Multiple languages	Yes, one file each	Yes, one file each	One per video
Works on all platforms	Most	Web players	Everywhere
Easy to fix mistakes	Yes	Yes	Re-render

Accessibility considerations

Closed captions (SRT/VTT) are generally preferred for accessibility, because viewers can adjust them and screen readers can access the text where supported. If you burn captions in for social media, consider also uploading an SRT where the platform allows it, so captions are available in both forms.

Our recommendation

• YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Facebook: upload an SRT.
• Your own website: use VTT with a <track> element.
• Reels, TikTok, Shorts: burn in captions — bold, high-contrast and placed away from on-screen buttons.

The free subtitle generator exports all three from the same edited transcript, so you can make one set of captions and use it everywhere.