Comparison
Subtitles King vs Deepgram
Deepgram is for streaming voice. Subtitles King is for finished video.
TL;DR
At a glance.
| Feature | Subtitles King | Deepgram |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | ✓ 100 MB videos | $200 credit |
| Cost (paid) | Pro waitlist | ~$0.43/hr (Nova) |
| MCP server | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-host | ✓ free | ✓ enterprise only |
| Real-time streaming | ✗ | ✓ best in class |
| Burned video output | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✗ |
| Latency to first text | Minutes | Milliseconds |
When Deepgram wins
- Best-in-class real-time streaming transcription latency.
- Custom model training and fine-tuning on your data.
- Strong contact center / live caption use cases.
- Enterprise on-prem deployment available (paid).
When Subtitles King wins
- Free open-source self-host — no enterprise contract required.
- Returns the finished, subtitle-burned video, not just transcript text.
- MCP-native for AI agent integration.
- Simpler API surface for the common "subtitle this video" use case.
Code
Integration, side by side.
Subtitles King
# Subtitles King: 3 lines
curl -X POST https://brains.subtitlesking.com/presign \
-H "X-API-KEY: $KEY" -d '{"filename":"clip.mp4"}'
curl -X POST "$URL" -F "file=@clip.mp4"
curl -X POST https://brains.subtitlesking.com/queue -d '{"authToken":"$T"}'Deepgram
# Deepgram: transcribe and you still need to render captions
from deepgram import DeepgramClient, PrerecordedOptions
import httpx
dg = DeepgramClient("your_key")
with open("clip.mp4", "rb") as audio:
payload = {"buffer": audio}
options = PrerecordedOptions(
model="nova-2",
smart_format=True,
utterances=True,
)
res = dg.listen.rest.v("1").transcribe_file(payload, options)
# Now build SRT from utterances and burn with ffmpeg...FAQ
Common questions.
Should I use Deepgram for live captions and Subtitles King for VOD?+
Yes — that's probably the right split. Deepgram is the right choice for sub-second streaming use cases. Subtitles King is the right choice for "I have a video file, I want subtitles burned in".
Does Subtitles King support custom vocabulary like Deepgram?+
Not currently. We use Whisper large which has very strong general-domain accuracy. If you need custom vocab, Deepgram or self-hosted Whisper with biasing are better fits today.