Add real-time AI subtitles to your Twitch stream with one OBS browser source URL. No software to install, no plugins to configure. Live captions running in under two minutes.
Add Subtitles to Your StreamA subtitle overlay is a caption layer that sits on top of your stream's video output, displaying real-time text of what you are saying as you say it. Unlike closed captions that a viewer can toggle on or off, a subtitle overlay is burned directly into the video frame — it becomes part of the visual output that every viewer sees, on every platform, in every recording.
For Twitch streamers, adding a subtitle overlay in 2026 is one of the highest-leverage accessibility improvements you can make. It requires almost no technical knowledge, costs a few dollars a month, and immediately opens your content to a broader audience: deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, non-native speakers watching in their second language, viewers in environments where they cannot play audio, and viewers who simply read faster than they process audio.
Beyond accessibility, subtitles improve engagement metrics. Viewers who can read along stay on stream longer, understand context more quickly, and are more likely to engage in chat. Many streamers report that adding captions changed how international viewers interacted with their content — suddenly a Spanish or Japanese viewer who had been lurking quietly could follow along fully for the first time.
The StreamTranslate approach to subtitle overlays is built specifically for streamers who do not want to deal with complex software setups. You get one URL. You paste it into OBS as a browser source. Done. The AI handles transcription, the browser source handles display, and you stream exactly as you normally would.
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) and Streamlabs OBS both support a source type called a Browser Source. A browser source is exactly what it sounds like — a web page rendered inside OBS that can be positioned and layered within your scene like any other visual element. It can be transparent, it can be animated, and it updates in real time based on what the page is displaying.
StreamTranslate takes advantage of this by providing each streamer with a unique browser source URL. That URL points to a live-updating web page that displays the current transcription of your microphone audio. As you speak, your audio is sent to StreamTranslate's backend, processed by Deepgram Nova-2 — one of the most accurate real-time speech-to-text models available — and the resulting text is pushed back to your browser source within milliseconds.
The browser source in OBS renders that text on a transparent background, so all your viewers see is the subtitle text floating over your stream content — no web browser chrome, no interface, just clean captions exactly where you positioned them.
Because the browser source is rendered locally on your machine and then encoded into your stream by OBS, the subtitles become a permanent part of the video output. They appear in your live stream, in your Twitch VODs, in clips made from your stream, and in any recordings you keep locally. This is one of the most important characteristics of the overlay method compared to the Twitch Extension method — more on that distinction later.
Go to streamtranslate.live/setup and sign up for a streamer account. The plan is $9.99 per month. Once your account is active, you will have access to your dashboard where your unique overlay URL lives.
Log in to the StreamTranslate dashboard and navigate to the OBS setup section. You will see your unique browser source URL displayed prominently. Copy it to your clipboard. This URL is specific to your account and your stream — do not share it publicly.
In OBS Studio or Streamlabs OBS, open the scene you use for streaming. In the Sources panel, click the plus icon and select Browser Source from the list. Give it a name like "StreamTranslate Subtitles" so it is easy to identify later.
In the browser source settings, paste your StreamTranslate URL into the URL field. Set the width to match your stream canvas width (typically 1920 for 1080p streams) and set the height to somewhere between 150 and 300 pixels — enough height for two lines of subtitle text with comfortable padding. Check the box to shut down the source when it is not visible to save resources.
Close the browser source settings and drag the source to the bottom of your scene canvas. Center it horizontally. Most streamers place their subtitle bar approximately 50 to 80 pixels from the bottom edge of the frame — high enough to clear any Twitch player UI elements that overlay the video corners, but low enough to stay out of the way of your main content.
Use OBS's Studio Mode or start a test stream to verify captions are appearing correctly. Speak a few sentences at your normal streaming pace and check that the text appears within a second of your voice. If you see a delay longer than about 500ms, check your internet connection and make sure your microphone is set as the default input device in your system settings.
StreamTranslate provides appearance settings in the dashboard that let you control how your subtitle overlay looks. You can adjust font size, text color, background color and opacity, line spacing, and the maximum number of words displayed at once. These changes are applied to your live browser source without requiring you to remove and re-add it in OBS — the page updates in place.
Subtitle readability on Twitch depends on the size of the viewer's window. Many viewers watch in theater mode or full screen, but plenty also watch in a smaller embedded window. A font size that reads comfortably at full screen may be too small for embedded viewing. Most streamers find that a font size between 28 and 36 pixels strikes the right balance. Test your subtitle overlay at different browser window sizes to see how it reads for different viewer setups.
A common mistake is setting the subtitle background to fully transparent, which makes white text disappear against bright game environments or light-colored stream scenes. StreamTranslate recommends a semi-transparent dark background behind the text — typically a black or dark gray at around 60 to 75 percent opacity. This keeps captions readable across all content types without the background feeling too heavy or distracting.
StreamTranslate uses a rolling caption style by default, where completed sentences scroll up and new text appears at the bottom. You can adjust how many characters or words are held in the display buffer at once. For fast talkers or technical content with long sentences, a larger buffer keeps more context visible. For casual conversation, a shorter buffer that clears quickly can feel more natural and less cluttered.
StreamTranslate offers two delivery methods for captions: the OBS browser source overlay, and the StreamTranslate Twitch Extension that viewers install in their own browsers. These are not competing options — they can both be active at the same time — but they serve different purposes and have different trade-offs worth understanding.
You want captions to appear in VODs and clips. You want every viewer to see captions without needing to install anything. You are streaming to platforms beyond Twitch (YouTube, Kick, Facebook Gaming, Rumble) where a viewer-side extension is not available. You want complete visual control over subtitle placement and styling. You are using multi-platform simulcasting and need a single caption solution that works everywhere simultaneously.
You want viewers to have personal control over whether they see captions. You want each viewer to be able to choose their own language for translated captions. You prefer captions not to appear in your VODs or recordings. You are streaming exclusively on Twitch and want to offer a native-feeling in-player caption experience. The extension is free for viewers once your StreamTranslate subscription is active.
The overlay and the extension can run simultaneously without conflict. Many streamers use both: the overlay ensures captions are burned into the video output for VODs and multi-platform viewers, while the Twitch Extension gives live viewers the ability to switch languages or turn captions off entirely if they prefer. Learn more at streamtranslate.live/live-translator.
Never skip the pre-stream test. Caption failures during a live broadcast are hard to fix in real time, and a half-broken caption overlay that displays garbled text or lags several seconds behind your voice is more distracting than having no captions at all. The StreamTranslate dashboard includes a preview mode where you can speak into your microphone and see exactly what the overlay will display, independent of OBS. Use this to verify your microphone input is being picked up correctly before adding the browser source to OBS.
Once the browser source is in OBS, use OBS's built-in preview to do a full end-to-end test. Speak in different registers — your normal stream voice, a fast excited commentary voice, a quieter explanatory voice — and check that captions keep up accurately across all of them. Deepgram Nova-2 handles accent variation and pace changes well, but your specific microphone setup and room acoustics will affect performance. If accuracy feels low, check that you are using a dedicated microphone rather than a webcam mic, and that noise suppression filters in OBS are not cutting off the beginnings of your words.
After setting up your subtitle overlay, the most common follow-up questions from streamers involve how the overlay interacts with their existing scene setup, whether it works on secondary monitors, and whether it affects stream performance. On performance: the browser source renders locally on your CPU, and StreamTranslate is optimized to be extremely lightweight. The caption page uses minimal JavaScript and no heavy rendering frameworks, so the performance impact is negligible even on modest streaming PCs.
For multi-scene setups where you have a gaming scene, a face-cam scene, a brb screen, and an outro — you will need to add the browser source to each scene individually, or use OBS's global sources feature to share it across scenes. Global sources ensure the browser source stays connected and does not restart between scene switches, which keeps caption continuity smooth during scene transitions.
Visit streamtranslate.live/setup for the complete setup guide including multi-scene configuration, troubleshooting steps, and tips for specific microphone setups.
Yes. Because the subtitle overlay is burned into the video output via OBS, it appears in your Twitch VODs, clips, and anywhere else the stream video is recorded or replayed. The text is part of the video frame itself, not a separate layer that Twitch adds on top. This is one key difference from the StreamTranslate Twitch Extension, which only displays captions in the live viewer's browser and does not appear in recordings or VODs. If you want captions preserved in all your content, the overlay method is the right choice.
Yes. StreamTranslate provides options to customize font size, text color, background opacity, caption positioning, and the display buffer length. You can adjust these settings from the StreamTranslate dashboard and the changes are reflected live in your OBS browser source without needing to remove and re-add the source. This lets you fine-tune the appearance in real time during a test run without interrupting your workflow. Most streamers spend a few minutes adjusting font size and background opacity before settling on a look that fits their stream aesthetic.
Yes. The StreamTranslate overlay works with any streaming software that supports browser sources, including OBS Studio, Streamlabs OBS, and XSplit. The process is the same across all of them: add a browser source and paste your StreamTranslate URL. No additional plugins or configurations are needed. The browser source renders the same way regardless of which streaming software you use, so the visual result is identical. If you are using Streamlabs OBS specifically, the browser source option is found in the same Sources panel as in OBS Studio — look for it under the plus icon when adding a new source to your scene.
After adding the browser source in OBS, you can drag and resize it like any other source in your scene. Most streamers position the subtitle bar at the bottom center of the frame to match standard subtitle placement that viewers are familiar with from television and film. A common best practice is to leave about 50 to 80 pixels of space between the bottom of the caption bar and the bottom edge of the canvas — this keeps subtitles clear of any Twitch player UI elements that appear in the corners of the video. You can lock the source transform in OBS once you have it positioned correctly to prevent it from accidentally shifting if you click on your scene during a live stream.
The subtitle overlay does not add any latency to your video or audio stream. The captions appear inside the OBS browser source, which is rendered locally on your machine as a layer on top of the video — this has no effect on the encoding or transmission of your stream. The only timing characteristic to be aware of is that captions appear within approximately 500ms of the words being spoken. This means captions are very close to real time, but there is a brief window where viewers see the video before the caption appears. This is standard for all real-time STT systems and is generally imperceptible during normal stream viewing. Your stream's video and audio reach viewers at exactly the same time they always did.