I have more to gain from you choosing TubeBuddy, but I still recommend VidIQ for most creators.
Tubebuddy and VidIQ are both services that link to your YouTube channel and give creators tools to increase their productivity and the search engine optimization of their videos (resulting in more views and more revenue).
These services may be quite similar in mission, but after spending a lot of time on both of them, I’ve realized that each one serves a different base of creators depending on their needs. So which group do you fall into? I’m going to compare the sites in four categories:
User interface
Available Tools
AI Integration
Budget
User Interface
In my opinion, VidIQ’s website and YouTube extension kick the pants off of Tubebuddy in terms of simplicity and visual appeal.
VidIQ’s main webpage has an overview of your channel and video ideas on the dashboard page, while you have quick access to their best tools via a menu bar at the top. Each of these pages are very easy to navigate and quite simple.
Tubebuddy’s site, on the other hand, is very confusing to me. There’s a lot of stuff going on and it’s all presented in a pretty harsh, analytical, dated way. There’s even still pages for tools that are discontinued and references to a "Star" license level that doesn’t exist anymore.
As far as the website goes, VidIQ is modern and sleek while Tubebuddy honestly seems like it hasn’t been updated since 2010. The YouTube extension is a little bit better, but not by much.
Tubebuddy is built in as a side menu to everything on your YouTube page, and all of its pop-up windows share the same confusing, dated ascetic as the main website.
VidIQ’s upload tools feel much more integrated into YouTube’s UI and their pop-up windows are clean and easy to understand. Even small things like the choice of colors, font, and graphic design put VidIQ far ahead of Tubebuddy in this category and make the service much more enjoyable to use.
Tools
Youtube has their own analytic tools that are pretty awesome nowadays, so what I’m looking at in this category is the tools that Tubebuddy and VidIQ supply to creators that Youtube doesn’t already give you.
Both services have a channel stats summary page to help you make sense of your YouTube analytics. VidIQ calls this the “Channel Audit” and Tubebuddy calls it a “Health Report”.
Tubebuddy’s health report is pretty barebones - honestly your analytics dashboard within YouTube gives you a better look at your channel health than Tubebuddy.
VidIQ Simplifies analytics in a much better way, splitting your content stats into two categories - Content to Double Down On and Content That Could Use Work. This is a really easy way to check your best and worst performing videos over the last period and understand why they may or may not be performing well.
Both Tubebuddy and VidIQ also have keyword tag tools that make uploading videos with optimal SEO much faster and easier - again, I prefer VidIQ here because the user experience is better - but effectively they do the same thing.
Competitors can be tracked through both websites but VidIQ is way ahead here because they not only allow you to add channels of your won, but also recommend channels in your niche for you to follow, which is a great way to build community and even discover creators that might be a good match for collaborations.
By far the most important feature from these services when it comes to creating videos with high view potential is the keyword research tool.
When coming up with a new video idea, you can plug the title into both VidIQ and Tubebuddy and receive an optimization score based on internet traffic and how previous videos that you’ve made have performed. The weird thing is, the scores are not super consistent between the two services - sometimes a title that gets a great score on VidIQ ends up with a terrible score on Tubebuddy.
After fiddling around with it a little bit, it seems that Tubebuddy is much more sensitive to the exact wording of your keyword, while VidIQ gives you a more rounded look at the topic in general. After using them both, I trust VidIQ more, but Tubebuddy works as long as you know how to use it and have time to try different wordings for your keyword.
Tubebuddy does have one tool that VidIQ lacks, which is a video thumbnail A/B testing feature, however I don’t consider this a big deal at the moment because YouTube themselves are beginning to roll out an A/B testing feature which will make Tubebuddy's tool completely obsolete in a matter of months.
AI Integration
Tubebuddy does have a few AI tools like title generation, suggested shorts, and thumbnail analysis, but suggested shorts doesn’t really work in my experience and VidIQ has a title tool as well (one that’s even more smoothly integrated).
VidIQ also uses AI to analyze your upload and give you a checklist of things to do in order to properly utilize SEO. The analysis isn’t always perfect but it’s a great reminder to double check all of your best practices.
It’s on VidIQ’s website that AI starts to really take off. When you link your YouTube channel to VidIQ, their AI analyzes your content and statistics to provide you with a bunch of video ideas based on your channel and internet traffic. Now, these aren’t always the best ideas in the world, but they certainly serve as a starting point if you feel creatively burnt out.
There’s also an AI content generator that takes a video idea and will create an entire piece of content about it (short of the actual video file). This includes the title, keywords, description, script, voiceover, and thumbnail of a video. If you’re a YouTube automation person this is a dream come true.
Most importantly, VidIQ links your channel with Chat GPT to create an AI coach that can help you brainstorm video topics, SEO your videos, learn how to create better content, generate descriptions, tags, and more. This is basically a Chat GPT bot trained specifically on your channel so it can be the best assistant possible for your needs. It’s incredible. Tubebuddy has none of this.
Value
Currently Tubebuddy is on sale for $3.75/month for the Pro plan and $16.50/month for the Legend plan.
VidIQ comes in at $5/month for Pro and $24.50/month for a one channel Boost plan.
Bottom line - Tubebuddy is the budget option here. If you just want keyword research and tag tools, go for Tubebuddy Pro. However, if you want a better user experience and even more tools, spend an extra $1.25 every month for VidIQ Pro.
I would never recommend Tubebuddy Legend - I simply don’t think it’s worth it. VidIQ boost is a great option though, as long as you have the budget. I also have a discount code (use code "jmartin") that will give you 50% off your first two months of boost if you want to give it a try.
My Opinion
I’m gonna be real with you. I have every financial reason to promote Tubebuddy over VidIQ because they have a better affiliate system, which means I would make more money from driving sales to Tubebuddy - but I’m never going to do that and you deserve to know that I truly think VidIQ is the better product here in 2024.
What did you think of my Tubebuddy vs VidIQ review? Leave a comment below!
Happy creating. See you 'round the Underground.
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