Every embroidery machine reads a slightly different file format. Some formats are lean — just stitches and jumps. Others carry color information, machine-specific commands and even design metadata. Choosing the right one starts with knowing what your machine expects.
DST is the workhorse of commercial embroidery. Developed by Tajima decades ago, it's a barebones format that every commercial machine on the planet can read. It contains stitches, trims and jump commands — but no color data. Colors are managed on the machine itself, from a color chart your digitizer provides.
PES is the Brother / Babylock format used by most home and mid-range hobbyist machines. Unlike DST, PES stores color information, so the machine tells you exactly which thread to load next. If you're a home embroiderer, PES is the format you want.
EXP is the Melco native format, used by many US commercial operators. Functionally similar to DST, with slightly better handling of jumps and trims.
JEF is Janome's native format. VP3 and VIP belong to Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff. HUS is legacy Husqvarna. XXX is Singer. Each corresponds to a specific machine ecosystem and will play best on that hardware.
EMB is Wilcom's native design file. It's not a stitch file at all — it's a source file with every editable object intact. Digitizers use it internally, and shops that own Wilcom software may prefer it because they can edit downstream.
The pro answer to which format is best is simple: get all of them. StichDesign bundles every major format with every order at no extra cost, so you're never stuck when a new machine arrives.