SRT and VTT are both plain-text subtitle formats with timestamps, and they look nearly identical at a glance — which is exactly why people mix them up. Here's what actually differs, and how to choose.
SRT (SubRip Subtitle)
The older, simpler, and more universally supported of the two. SRT is just an index number, a timestamp range, and the text — nothing else. It's supported by almost every video player, editor, and platform (YouTube included), which makes it the safest default when you're not sure what a destination tool expects.
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Welcome to the show.VTT (WebVTT)
The web standard, designed specifically for HTML5 <track> elements in browsers. VTT supports a few things SRT doesn't — basic styling, positioning, and metadata headers — which matters if you're embedding captions directly into a web video player rather than uploading to a third-party platform.
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Welcome to the show.Which one should you use?
- Uploading to YouTube, Vimeo, or most video editors: SRT — universally accepted, no surprises.
- Embedding captions in your own website's video player: VTT — it's the format browsers expect natively.
- Not sure, or need both: export both from the same transcript — most transcription software, ScribeForge included, generates either from the same underlying transcript without extra work.
See the full list of export formats — including which are free and which are Pro — in How to Export Transcripts, or read more about generating subtitles in the first place on the video to text page.