Free · Video · 9 of 10 tools · updated Oct 27, 2026
Free AI tools for subtitles & captions
Whisper is the strongest tool for subtitles & captions you can use without paying, at 85/100. What you get for nothing: Free (MIT); hosted API $0.006/min. 9 of the 10 tools tracked for this job have a free tier, an open-source licence, or are free outright. It is also the top-ranked tool for this job overall, free or not.
Same evidence score as the ranking — GitHub stars, Hacker News mentions, Wikipedia readership, release activity, free access — recomputed nightly, never sold. See all 10 tools for subtitles & captions.
Top 3
evidence / 100
+ Free, runs fully offline, and remains the accuracy benchmark that most commercial transcription services are measured against.
− No speaker diarization out of the box, it hallucinates text during silence, and large models are slow without a GPU.
+ The most capable free editor for short-form, with TikTok-native templates and captions.
− Features keep migrating behind Pro, and its ByteDance ownership raises data and availability concerns in some regions.
+ Eye-contact correction and lip-synced dubbing work well on phone-shot talking-head video.
− The subscription is expensive relative to CapCut and many effects feel gimmicky.
All 9, side by side
| Tool | Score | Pricing | What you get free | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whisper | 85 | Open source | Free (MIT); hosted API $0.006/min | cli, api, mac, windows, linux |
| CapCut | 66 | Free tier | Pro from $7.99/mo | web, windows, mac, ios, android |
| Captions | 64 | Free tier | no limits published | ios, android, web, mac |
 AssemblyAI | 39 | Free tier | Free credits; then per hour of audio | api |
 Kapwing | 33 | Free tier | from $16/mo | web |
 Rev | 14 | Free tier | AI $0.25/min; human $1.50/min | web, ios, android, api |
 Descript | 10 | Free tier | Hobbyist from $12/mo billed annually | web, mac, windows |
 VEED | 8 | Free tier | from $12/mo | web |
 Vizard | 8 | Free tier | no limits published | web |
A free tier counts, and so does an open-source licence you can self-host — both are in the table, so a tool that is only free for a trial is not here.
Head to head: Whisper vs CapCut Whisper vs Captions CapCut vs Captions