Tubebuddy Vs VidIQ: Ultimate Tool For YouTube SEO? (June 2023)
Ready to boost the growth of your YouTube channel? Two remarkable online software – TubeBuddy and VidIQ are here to empower YouTube content creators and fill the gap between your content and audience reach.
YouTube Studio is the free official analytics tool provided by Youtube, but sadly it does not provide insights into trending topics and keyword search volume. However, TubeBuddy and VidIQ can provide you with the right SEO tools to transform your channel’s performance.
In this article, we’ll dive into a detailed comparison between these two trending YouTube-certified SEO softwares to help you choose the absolute best for your needs.
TubeBuddy Vs VidIQ: Quick Preview
TubeBuddy Review
VidIQ Review
VidIQ vs Tubebuddy: The Ultimate YouTube SEO Tool Quick Comparison
| YouTube SEO Tool | Topic ideas | Video Optimization | Competitor Analysis | User interface | Browser Support | Customer Support |
| VidIQ | 4/5 | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 | 4.5/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 |
| Tubebuddy | 4.5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 |
Is TubeBuddy the best? Pros and Cons
Since its launch in 2014, the TubeBuddy Chrome extension has helped millions of users achieve their viewership and income goals. Let’s see what makes or don’t make TubeBuddy worth using:
Pros
Cons
Key takeaway: Despite not being mobile-friendly, TubeBuddy is a specialized YouTube SEO tool that helps find strong keywords, high-ranking tags and provides an automation facility to assist you in optimizing and boosting your channel’s performance in less time.
Is VidIQ worth the money? Pros and Cons
Launched in 2011, VidIQ has been a reliable tool for the success of millions of YouTubers worldwide. However, knowing both sides of the coin is essential:
Pros
Cons
Despite limited benefits on the free version, VidIQ is a great YouTube SEO tool that provides in-depth analytics, keyword research, and audience insights to help optimize the channel on your YouTube account.
Also Read: Is VidIQ Safe?
VidIQ vs Tubebuddy: Detailed Comparison
Let’s begin the showdown as I compare every feature of VidIQ and TubeBuddy to pick out the ultimate winner:
Topic Ideas
This feature helps creators come up with engaging content ideas for their next YouTube videos that are relevant and trending at the same time.
TubeBuddy Topic Ideas
You can generate relevant keyword suggestions based on their channel’s content and target audience. It provides a wide range of keyword tools, including tag explorer, search rankings, and tag suggestions, to help creators filter results based on search volume and competition. The tag suggestions for individual videos helps YouTube creator optimize their content for higher visibility.
Note: Tubebuddy has recently added a new feature – Suggested Shorts. This feature helps you identify the moments from your long-form videos that gained maximum retention so you can create engaging YouTube shorts from those snippets.
VidIQ Topic Ideas
Its ‘Daily Ideas’ tool helps you brainstorm popular content with the potential to rank better on search engines. You can generate and insert relevant keywords for your niche or content topic. There is also an ‘AI Generator’ feature that automatically creates a title, description, script, and voiceover for a particular keyword at your command.
Thus, with VidIQ, you can get insights into popular search terms, trending topics, video suggestions, search volume, competitors, and related keywords, to optimize your channel content strategy accordingly.
TubeBuddy is the winner for this round as it helps generate better topic Ideas that can assist you in finding trending keywords relevant to the niche for your content, whether you are a beginner or an active Youtuber.
Video Optimization
Video optimization refers to altering certain video elements, such as title, description, tags, hashtags, and thumbnail, to enhance the click-through rate.
TubeBuddy Video Optimization
‘Video Optimization’ offers features such as tag suggestions, tag explorer, and tag rankings, allowing creators to select the most relevant and effective tags for their videos. TubeBuddy also provides thumbnail A/B testing, enabling users to experiment with different thumbnails and determine which resonates best with their audience.
VidIQ Video Optimization
‘Video Optimization’ feature is equally powerful, providing valuable data and recommendations for video optimization. It offers insights into keyword research, video tags, and competitor analysis. VidIQ also provides a video scorecard feature that evaluates video optimization and provides recommendations for improvement.
VidIQ is the winner. While both TubeBuddy and VidIQ excel in their video Optimization capabilities, offering a range of features to enhance video performance and visibility, VidIQ outperformed TubeBuddy in terms of easy keyword export and more extensive optimization with the free version.
Competitor Analysis
It’s always wise to learn from the best in your niche. This feature in SEO tools helps creators know who they are competing with or what their competitors are doing differently to beat the game.
TubeBuddy Competitor Analysis
The ‘Competitor Analysis’ feature allows users to compare their channel’s performance with their competitors. During competitor analysis, you can also audit any Youtube channel using the ‘Channelytics’ option.
These features provide data on monthly, annual, or all-time performance in terms of views, subscribers, and engagement metrics allowing creators to benchmark their accomplishments and identify areas for improvement.
TubeBuddy also offers insights into competitor channel tags and keywords, enabling users to understand the strategies employed by successful channels in their niche.
VidIQ Competitor Analysis
The ‘Competitor Analysis’ feature provides comprehensive data and insights on competitor channels. It offers detailed YouTube analytics on views, subscribers, engagement, and social media performance, giving creators a holistic view of their competitors’ success.
VidIQ also offers a ‘Channel Audit tool’ which comprehensively analyzes a competitor channel based on its video content, tags, and social media presence.
VidIQ is the winner as it offers valuable ‘Competitor Analysis’ features that enable creators to gain insights into their competitors’ performance and strategies.
User Interface and Browser Support
UI refers to the design, layout, and interactive elements of software or application that helps you surf through, access, and utilize its features.
TubeBuddy UI
The user interface is well-organized but a bit outdated and slow. It provides clear menus and tabs for easy on-page access to different features and research tools. TubeBuddy’s browser extension is supported by most browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge) and seamlessly integrates with YouTube, providing convenient access to its features while working on the platform.
VidIQ UI
Its UI is user-friendly, visually appealing, and fairly easy to navigate. It offers a clean and modern design, with well-structured menus and sections. VidIQ provides a drop-down analytical topbar within YouTube’s interface, allowing users to access its features and insights without switching between different tabs or windows.
Note: VidIQ only works on Chrome, Firefox and does not support Safari. However, according to a recent update, the company is planning to make it compatible with Apple’s Safari in the future.
It is a tie. Both TubeBuddy and VidIQ offer integrated free browser extensions for on-channel access and analyses. However, in terms of mobile-friendly design, VidIQ is the winner. But, in terms of browser support, TubeBuddy is the winner.
Unique Features
Here are three stand-out features in the two YouTube video SEO tools that help users maximize their productivity and publish content consistently.
Bulk Editing
TubeBuddy: It offers many bulk editing features that allow users to update and modify multiple videos at once efficiently. It provides options for bulk updating text, video titles, descriptions, tags, thumbnail overlays, and more, saving creators valuable time and effort.
VidIQ: VidIQ also provides a bulk editing feature that lets users change multiple videos simultaneously. Creators can edit titles, video descriptions, tags, and other metadata in bulk, streamlining their video optimization process.
Note: VidIQ offers a unique ‘Controversial Keywords’ feature under the video optimization checklist column of videolytics. It helps you detect damaging keywords that might lead to the flagging or demonetization of your video.
A/B Testing
TubeBuddy: TubeBuddy provides an added feature called A/B testing for thumbnails, allowing creators to compare different thumbnail designs and determine which performs better in attracting clicks and engagement. It provides insights and analytics to help users make data-driven decisions.
VidIQ: It does not offer a dedicated A/B testing feature for thumbnails.
VPH and Trend Alerts
TubeBuddy: TubeBuddy does not have a dedicated VPH feature for real-time tracking of views per hour. However, it offers a ‘What’s Trending’ column in the keyword explorer highlighting videos currently popular on YouTube.
VidIQ: VPH (Views Per Hour) feature provides real-time data on how many views and engagement a video receives every 60 minutes, helping you identify videos gaining traction immediately. VidIQ also offers trend alerts that notify users of rising topics and keywords on YouTube.
VidIQ is the winner when it comes to offering unique features. While TubeBuddy takes the lead in the A/B testing capability, VidIQ wins in the Bulk Editing and VPH/trend alerts categories. Its controversial keywords feature is also worth considering.
Pricing & Customer Support
To maximize your channel growth, it’s important to realize the shortcomings of free plans and invest wisely in paid SEO tools for that extra push.
Additionally, a good customer support team can make quite a difference when it comes to winning customers.
Is Tubebuddy Worth It?
It offers multiple pricing options based on your need, such as – Free, Pro, Legend, and Enterprise, wherein key features and benefits increase with every higher plan. The free plan is recommended for beginners, the Pro plan for small Youtube creators, the Legend plan for professionals with multiple YouTube channels, and the Enterprise plan for companies, teams, or large YouTube accounts.
The free plan offers access to 30+ free features in the desktop version, of which 19 have unlimited access, and the rest have limited access. For example, you can use only a few of the total generated results of related topics or customized keywords with the free version. You will see the ‘Upgrade Now’ link below the limited access features as a reminder for a license upgrade.
The upgraded license unlocks access to added premium features like priority support, historical data, advanced scheduling, customer integrations, and more detailed optimization.
Coming to customer support, TubeBuddy is excellent with multiple channels assistance. They provide a dedicated support team that responds promptly to user queries and offers assistance via email. TubeBuddy also provides blogs, tutorials, and a YouTube community forum where users can get guides, ask queries, and engage with other creators.
Is VidIQ Worth It?
VidIQ offers four pricing plans – Free, Pro, Boost, and Max. The Free plan provides limited features, while you can unlock additional features and benefits with the higher plans. The recommendation to a different user base is similar to as mentioned for TubeBuddy.
As for the free version, you are limited to only 3 daily ideas, 3 competitor tracking alerts, and 1 trend alert in a day. However, the free plan provides unlimited use of features like the live stats bar and competitor analysis.
VidIQ also offers good customer support through various channels. You can reach out to them for assistance or complaints. It offers only email response facility to basic plan users and both email and chat facilities to upgraded plan users.
VidIQ also provides blogs, tutorials, a private Discord community (Max) for informative guides or the latest updates, and a live chat facility on its website to solve your queries.
TubeBuddy is the Winner as it exceeds in providing a more cost-effective pricing plan and customer support.
However, remember that both TubeBuddy and VidIQ offer various paid plans based on the functionality and tools required. You must choose the one that aligns with your requirement and budget. You can also enjoy additional discounts if you choose yearly plans over monthly.
VidIQ and Tubebuddy Alternative: Is Morningfame worth it?
Let us introduce you to the third player in the game – MorningFame. Here is a quick comparison between the three YouTube SEO tools for you:
| Factors | VidIQ | Tubebuddy | MorningFame |
| Keyword Research | Shows search volume and competition level | Shows weighted and unweighted SEO score | Basic and limited with free version |
| Video Optimization | Limited with the paid plan | Unlimited with the paid plan | No on-page optimization for old videos |
| Channel Optimization | Possible with bulk editing tools | Possible with bulk editing tools | No bulk optimization feature |
| Performance Audit | Detailed graphical analysis | Detailed statistical analysis | Detailed numerical analysis |
| User Interface | Mobile-friendly, fast, and easy to navigate | Outdated and slow, but easy to navigate | Dedicated web application with easy navigation |
| Pricing | Check Price | Check Price | Check Price |
????Overall Winner
I declare VidIQ the ultimate winner for this head-on comparison between VidIQ and TubeBuddy.
While all three tools offer valuable features for YouTube creators, based on their extensive keyword research capabilities, integrated video optimization features, and detailed performance audits, VidIQ ticks the most boxes. Its functionality makes it a commendable video tool for your YouTube channel management, optimization, and growth.
VidIQ provides fast results, a modern and easy-to-follow user interface, detailed competitor analysis, a powerful keyword explorer, tags generator, latest trend alerts, bulk optimization, and good customer support.
However, I recommend you keep experimenting with the free versions of different SEO tools and purchase the paid version of the ones that bring maximum results. You must consider your brand’s specific requirements and preferences before making a final decision.
Related Articles:
- VidIQ AI Content Generator: Tried & Tested (2023)
- Dynamic Video – Personalized Video Creation at Scale
Tubebuddy vs VidIQ: FAQs
Yes. You can use TubeBuddy and VidIQ simultaneously. By utilizing both TubeBuddy and VidIQ, you can access a broader range of analytical insights, optimization tools, and suggestions for your YouTube channel.
Not at all. TubeBuddy is a pro-YouTube tool designed to enhance the YouTube experience for creators by providing useful features, analytics, and optimization, and productivity tools.
No. Rest assured, as VidIQ does not have the authority to delete your YouTube channel. The user agreement you sign before linking your YouTube channel to the VidIQ interface only gives permission to alter or control video upload as per your permission.
SocialBlade is primarily known for its advanced analytics and tracking features, providing detailed channel statistics for YouTubers and famous influencers. On the other hand, TubeBuddy offers a wide range of optimization tools and features to enhance content creation and channel growth. The better option between SocialBlade and TubeBuddy would depend on whether you prioritize in-depth analytics or comprehensive optimization tools for your YouTube channel.
Comparing YouTube Studio and TubeBuddy, it’s important to note that they serve different purposes. YouTube Studio is the official tool provided by YouTube, offering essential features for managing and overviewing your video and channel analytics. On the other hand, TubeBuddy is a third-party software that provides additional optimization tools and features to increase the search engine ranking of your content.
