Abstract: The microbial metabolism in vinegar is closely related to the flavor quality of vinegar, which has attracted the attention of researchers due to the diversity of microbes and flavor substances and their complex correlation. Exploring its research hot spots, evolution process and development trend is of great significance to guide the further research in this field. This paper used Cite Space to analyze the research hot spots, emerging trends and knowledge flow in the field of microbial diversity and flavor substance changes at home and abroad in the past 20 years, reflecting the research progress in this field in the past two decades. The results showed that the research heat of vinegar microbial diversity and flavor changes at home and abroad remained unchanged. Solid state fermentation, Chinese grain vinegar, acetic acid bacteria, metabolic characteristics, biological heat, and key environmental drivers were the main research directions in this field. The changes of knowledge flow in this research area were mainly from science, molecular, biology, immunology journals to environmental, toxicology, nutrition, molecular biology, genetics journals. Dynamics, solid state fermentation and volatile compounds would become new research hot spots.