Abstract: The spectrophotometric and HPLC was used to determine the polyphenols composition and antioxidant activities in apple cider vinegar and food vinegar (shanxi aged vinegar and hengshun vinegar) . The results showed that three kinds of vinegar contains high amounts of the total phenols, and food vinegar possesses higher values than apple cider vinegar. Meanwhile, a significant positive correlation between phenolics and antioxidant capacity was observed. In the monomeric phenolics detected, the apple cider vinegar not only had eight kinds of free phenols, but also had some unique polyphenols such as chlorogenic acid (6.56mg/L) , caffeic acid (3.03mg/L) and phloridzin (1.76mg/L) which had been found seldom in food vinegar in the chromatographic conditions of the experiment when sixteen standard as a reference. Concerning food vinegar, five kinds of free phenols were quantified, and the highest concentration of monomeric phenols was gallic acid. The hengshun vinegar displayed the highest gallic acid values (241.96mg/L) followed by shanxi aged vinegar (60.56mg/L) .There was a big difference in the polyphenols ratio between shanxi aged vinegar and hengshun vinegar.