BYOAIK (Bring Your Own AI Key) is a directory of AI tools that run on your own API key.
Subtitle Edit
Mature open-source subtitle editor with Whisper transcription and BYOK LLM auto-translation
- Category:
- Voice and Transcription Tools
- Maintenance:
- Actively developed (last commit today)
- Pricing:
- Open Source
- Open source:
- Yes (MIT)
- Self-hostable:
- No
- Local-first:
- Yes
- Platforms:
- Desktop
- AI providers (bring your own key):
- OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, Perplexity, Mistral, DeepSeek, Ollama, Custom / OpenAI-compatible
- API key storage:
- Stored locally on device
- Key risk level:
- LOW
- Trust score:
- 82/100
Subtitle Edit is a long-running, MIT-licensed open-source subtitle/caption editor (originally Windows-native, now cross-platform via v4) for creating, editing, syncing, and translating subtitles for video. Its Auto Translate feature includes a broad set of AI translation engines that the end user drives with their own API key: ChatGPT/OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, Perplexity, Mistral AI, DeepSeek, and NVIDIA, plus OpenAI-compatible local LLM backends (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp) requiring no external key. The official docs explicitly mark these engines as "requires API key," and GitHub issue #7850 shows users supplying their own OpenAI secret key and endpoint. Separately, offline speech-to-text is handled by bundled Whisper engines (OpenAI Whisper, Faster Whisper, whisper.cpp, Const-me, etc.) running entirely on-device: not a BYOK cloud feature. The app is privacy-focused and offline-first; only the optional online translation/STT engines send data to the selected provider.
Why this trust score (82/100)
Trust measures how the tool treats your API key and how much of that has been verified. It contains no popularity signal.
- Key Safety 23/25: The key is held on your own device.
- Request Routing 17/20: Requests go straight from you to the AI provider.
- Transparency 20/20: Source is public under MIT, so anyone can check how the key is handled.
- Privacy 11/15: Local-first: it works without sending your data anywhere.
- Maintenance 10/10: Actively developed: commits within the last three months.
- Verification Confidence 1/10: Compiled from public documentation by an AI-assisted pass, not independently confirmed.
What was checked
Verification tier RESEARCH_ASSISTED, derived from the evidence below and not set by hand.
- [REPORTED · RESEARCH] This listing was compiled by an AI-assisted research pass over the tool's public website, README and documentation. No person independently confirmed it.
- [CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Most recent commit 2026-08-15, about 0 month(s) ago. source
How your API key is handled
Your API key is stored locally on your device. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider.
Setup
Open settings, paste your provider API key, choose a model, and start. The key stays on your device.