TubeBuddy vs vidIQ

If you have an own YouTube channel and did a little bit of research already, because you want to grow on YouTube then you probably heard about TubeBuddy or vidIQ or maybe you heard of both of them. It’s time for Tubebuddy vs. vidIQ in this post! Now both of those powerful YouTube tools have a Chrome Extension and a Firefox Extension. Both will make your life a lot easier. But which YouTube tool is better? That’s what we are going to figure out today. I’ll show you everything you can do with TubeBuddy and everything you can do with vidIQ. But we are only using the FREE Tools. The winner of this contest will be the tool I’m going to buy, for my own YouTube channel.

In case you don’t want to read through this whole blog you can find a YouTube Video right here. This also shows you everything you can do with TubeBuddy and vidIQ but it got a little bit long so maybe this blog article is faster to read.

Alright let’s get started! I’ve created a scoreboard which I’ll update on every feature I compare between TubeBuddy and vidIQ. So we’ll have a winner and a loser and a scoreboard. We don’t have compared anything yet. So the score at the moment is 0 – 0 as you can see in the picture down below. Every feature give one of the YouTube Tools a point. I think it’s pretty easy to understand. I’ll hope you enjoy this little blog post and get everything you need out of it!

Accessibility Tubebuddy vs vidIQ

Round one fight! First of all we want to check the accessibility on both of these tools. Because even if you build the best tool it will give you absolutely nothing if you can’t use it right? So how do we install TubeBuddy and how can we install vidIQ to our browser and which browsers are supported? Let’s start with TubeBuddy first.

TubeBuddy created an extension for Google Chrome which I guess is the most popular browser at the moment. I’m also using Chrome but they also have an extension for Firefox. Now be honest, does anybody use a different browser? There are also a lot of people who use Safari as well and Safari is also supported. For those who use Microsoft Edge or Opera you don’t need to worry you’ll have access to TubeBuddy as well. So TubeBuddy is accessible on pretty much every browser and on pretty much every device. You only need to install the extension to your browser and get access to the FREE features of TubeBuddy. Let me show you how easy it is to add an extension to your browser with a simple screenshot.

How to install the TubeBuddy Extension

In the image above you see a blue button right? All you have to do is hit that button to add this addon or extension to your browser. After that you already should have access to the powerful YouTube Tools they offer. We will take a look at in just a few minutes. Before we dive into the different features let’s check if vidIQ can compete with TubeBuddy.

For me it’s important that the YouTube Tool supports the browsers I use the most. That means Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. So let’s check if vidIQ also got an extension for those browsers. As you probably assumed there is an extension for Chrome and Firefox from vidIQ and you probably also use one of those browsers right? But what about Microsoft Edge and Opera for example?

Unfortunately there are no extensions for the other browsers yet. So if you don’t use Chrome or Firefox you may be able to install the Chrome extension.. But there’s no support for that and if you are facing any issues there is little to no support as you can read in this small vidIQ article.

Now it’s time to update the score right? In my opinion it’s not that bad that vidIQ is only available for the two most common browsers. But still, the first point will go to TubeBuddy because they just have an extension for every browser? So let’s look at the scoreboard real quick. Then we will move on to the next feature in our TubeBuddy vs vidIQ Review.

Analytics Tubebuddy vs Analytics vidIQ

We installed both extension on Chrome. Now we will just take a look at the information we get if we install vidIQ. And after that what information we get if we install TubeBuddy. We are still talking about the FREE version of both tools. It’s much easier to directly compare this information. So we are doing it this way and we will decide who earns this point at the end. To get information from those YouTube SEO tools you need to install the extensions. You also need to login so maybe you need to create an account for vidIQ or TubeBuddy first. Once you installed it and signed in, you already should see these two little icons in the top of your YouTube Navigation.

In this little image you already see the first difference. On the left side you see what information vidIQ gives you instantly and always. You can see how many views you got in the last 60 minutes. In my case I had 13 views. You also see how many views you got in the last 48 hours. So vidIQ gives you more information at first sight but is this enough to win this point? We can expand both tools if we just click on the icons. For now only want to look at the information which are given, if we are surfing and watching on YouTube. We’ll start with our channel first. Then we will see what information we get from vidIQ and TubeBuddy on every channel we visit. Will there be any difference as well? Let’s check!

Channel Analytics – TubeBuddy

In the Image above you can see all the information TubeBuddy will give you for every channel you visit. So you get a quick little overview and even can copy the channel keywords. You also see the views of the channel and have a nice little graph so you get a good chunk of information. For a free YouTube tool already pretty cool right? But what can we do with vidIQ? Do we get more information, less or exactly the same? I’ll show you now!

Channel Analytics – vidIQ

If you installed vidIQ correctly and visit a channel you’ll get two extra tabs. Which you already see highlighted in the image above. I really like this little extension, because you’ll only see the data if you really want to see it right?

Now if we take a look at the stats we basically see the same information TubeBuddy gave us. We only don’t see the total views right? VidIQ gives us the possibility to see the total views as well with the little filter option in the top. We also get a little bit more information with vidIQ. As we can see the number of subscribers a channel grew in the last 30 days. You actually can also display those numbers with TubeBuddy. Maybe you don’t get more information? In my opinion this point already goes to vidIQ. But we have another tab to look at from vidIQ so let’s do this first!

vidIQ – Trending videos

In the trending tab from vidIQ we can see the videos with the highest velocity. That means the videos which get the most views per hour on a channel. This is a feature TubeBuddy will not give us at all. I think this feature is pretty, pretty good and for this little feature I would be happy to pay already. We even get it for free on vidIQ. Now we can see the views per hour (VPH) on every video. Not only on our own videos which is pretty great right? It’s time to update the scoreboard right here, right now. Then we’ll take a look at the cards we get on every video from those YouTube tools.

Videocards Tubebuddy vs. vidIQ

Who will take the next point? Now we wanna take a look at the cards and the information we get from those tools when we watch a video. We’ll start with TubeBuddy once again and take a quick look at the card. So I just throw in a screenshot real quick. We will talk about it and after that we compare it to the card of vidIQ.

TubeBuddy Videocard

We actually see pretty much everything we need right? Most important thing are the tags of the video. Now we are able to copy tags of videos from competitors. If a video went viral or someone did a really good job with a video, it’s pretty cool feature right?

The views, comments, likes and dislikes we also see without any YouTube tool. That’s not that intersting but the TubeBuddy SEO is pretty cool even if I don’t know how this works? As you can see I got a SEO score from TubeBuddy from 80 which is good I guess. We also see a little bit more information about the channel and the socials which is also cool. What I really like is the best practices because we see in a second what is good in this video and what’s missing. I need to add chapters to this video. I also would need to share it on facebook to make it a little bit better.. Now do we get the same information with vidIQ? And if we get a SEO score with vidIQ as well will it be the same? Let’s find out!

vidIQ Videocard

The videocard we get with vidIQ doesn’t even fit in one screenshot. We actually want to get more information as well? The first thing we see in the top is the vidIQ score. As you can see I only got 41/100 points. So vidIQ will help me to optimize this video a lot. Next to the vidIQ score we see the VPH (views per hour) which is still a pretty cool feature from vidIQ at least in my opinion. The social stats are pretty similar on both tools but I think it’s much easier to read on TubeBuddy. The SEO section of vidIQ actually looks a little bit different right?

And I only got a SEO score or a vidIQ SEO score of 49.1. While I have a score of 80 with TubeBuddy now we see that these tools work a little bit different. I also see how many links I added in the description which are 10 for this video. If you are familiar with SEO and backlinks you know that this is a good piece of information as well. Let’s be honest the SEO section is not that much different from TubeBuddy. Just a little bit right but is this enought to get the point?

vidIQ video optimization checklist

The video optimization checklist of vidIQ is a little bit longer. I don’t see the point “chapter added” on the list so in my opinion the checklist are equal. We also get the video tags with both tools and can simply copy them. So the tools are equal here as well..

But you also get some channel analytics right when you watch a video with vidIQ. TubeBuddy will not give you this information. Even if it can be very helpful so you don’t have to visit the channel first. This is a little bit better on vidIQ and what I also really, really like is that you can simply edit the tags on your own videos. As you maybe already saw in the screenshot. You simply can put in a tag and then hit the “Add tag” button and this makes your life a lot easier. On vidIQ you also see the topics of the video and the channel tags which you can’t see on the TubeBuddy videocard. So I think this point goes to vidIQ once again. That means it’s time to check the scoreboard!

YouTube Keyword Tool – Tubebuddy vs. vidIQ

We will stay on YouTube a little bit longer. Let’s check the tools we get before we dive into the dashboard which will be provided by both of those YouTube tools. So let’s have a look at the tools and possibilities we get with TubeBuddy first!

This is how it looks like if we expand the menu we get on YouTube. We can see all the tools which TubeBuddy provides and we will also take a deeper look at the keyword explorer later on. In my opinion this is one of the tools that will be used the most. We also see tools like the Click Magnet and other tools if we scroll down, but most of them don’t come with the free TubeBuddy version. Which means if you wanna use them you have to pay for it. It could be worth it right? What we actually wanna do is to compare the keyword explorer. It’s also pretty cool to keep track of all the achievements on YouTube right? TubeBuddy gives you that option as well. Let’s take a look at that as well and after that we move on with vidIQ..

TubeBuddy – Milestones

You can see all the milestones you already achieved. You also see the date when you achieved those milestones which is pretty cool right? In the screenshot you also see that you get a little bit more if you have the pro version of TubeBuddy. Whenever I look at those milestones it motivates me especially when I see how close I am to the next milestone. Let’s see how far I will come with my YouTube channel in the future. Maybe I read this blog post a year from now and my numbers have really exploded who knows right? It’s time to take a look at vidIQ now, so let’s do it!

vidIQ YouTube Extension

The vidIQ YouTube extension looks like this and as you can see you also have a lot pro features here as well. So it’s pretty similar to TubeBuddy so who will get the point now? First of all you see a lot of options on the left side here aand the half or even more will redirect you to the vidIQ dashboard. We will take a look at later on because I think it’s fantastic. Since we are using the free version of both YouTube tools we only can compare tools we get right? So what we are going to look at in a bit is the keyword inspector but before we do that, we wanna have a look at the achievements tab of vidIQ as well let’s see if this can motivate us.

You can’t even see all achievements of vidIQ right in this screenshot. VidIQ also shows you the best peforming month and the stats of that month which is pretty, pretty cool. They also calculate when you probably will hit the next achievement so in my opinion vidIQ is a little bit better and if you wanna see all of the achievements vidIQ give you, you need to install it now it’s free so you got nothing to lose. Is this enough for a point already? I would give this point to vidIQ but since we don’t get any information that really help us we will check which tool has the better keyword inspector and decide afterwards right? We’ll start with vidIQ first this time.

Keyword Inspector – vidIQ

This is the keyword inspector of vidIQ on the vidIQ dashboard. I just like it a lot better but you also can do this keyword search on YouTube itself with the vidIQ extension if you like to. Let’s take a look at what information we get and afer that we will do the same with TubeBuddy.

As you can see we get the search volume of the keyword per month and this is such a valuable information that I would pay for this feature only. If you have a keyword nobody searches for you don’t need to create a video about it right? Now vidIQ vs. TubeBuddy has a search volume of about 38.000 right?

But we also see related keywords and if we just take a look at those keywords we see the phrase “TubeBuddy vs vidIQ”. This phrase has a search volume of almost 95.000 so if you read this far, you now know why this blog article is and my video on Youtube are called TubeBuddy vs vidIQ.. This is the exact process I went through. So I’m pretty happy I had vidIQ on my side while doing some research.

We also see how much competition we have on a certain keyword. All keywords in this screenshot tell me that there is very low competition and at the end we also get an overall score so this keywords seems pretty good to target but let’s see if my video will also get good results right? Now let’s do the same search on TubeBuddy and then decide who will get this point.

Keyword Explorer – TubeBuddy

These are the results of the search on TubeBuddy’s keyword explorer. We also get some related searches which we can click through if we really want to. Much more information to these keywords is not given to us at the moment right? These keywords maybe will hit a better score but that’s about all we get. You see that this keyword has some competition and enough search volume to make it worth targeting, but we don’t really know what that mean right?

What we get by doing a keyword research on TubeBuddy is an overall score, some related keywords, and an idea about the competition and the search volume. So in my opinion vidIQ is doing a much better job what do you think? I’m always pretty happy to see some real numbers and the real search volume. So this point goes to vidIQ for sure and with that being said let’s update our scoreboard real quick.

Dashboard’s Tubebuddy vs. vidIQ

This is already a pretty long blog post so I wanna make the next things a little bit faster. We wanna take a quick look at the dashboards from both YouTube Tools. The winner of the dashboards will win a point. After that we are going to take a quick look at the affiliate marketing stuff from both tools. The winner for that will get a point as well. So if TubeBuddy wins both points we would have a draw. Enough talked let’s check out the TubeBuddy dashboard real quick!

This is the TubeBuddy dashboard and you can see I have two YouTube Channels connected. I think the Integration TubeBuddy provides are pretty awesome but to be honest you can’t do a lot here if you only have the free version of TubeBuddy. I will not go over everything in this post because it would just take to much time and as I already told you we are rushing to the end now. So let’s take a look at the vidIQ dashboard and then we’ll decide who wins this point, are you ready?

vidIQ Dashboard

Maybe you already noticed that this looks much more like a dashboard right? And you also can do a lot of more stuff on this dashboard and you instantly get some good information. You even can add some competitors as you can see in the screenshot and this is still the FREE version of vidIQ. Now don’t get me wrong, you also can do a lot of stuff with TubeBuddy and on the TubeBuddy dashboard, but for me the point goes to vidIQ. If you want to check everything out by yourself just install both extension and click through everything. For me vidIQ won this point but it was close. Let’s update the scoreboard real quick before we move on to our last feature.

Affiliate Program – Tubebuddy vs. vidIQ

The last feature is probably the most intersting one for a lot of you guys because we are talking about making money with vidIQ and TubeBuddy. Both have a pretty cool affiliate program which helps you to make money online. So if you are familiar with affiliate marketing you should already now what’s coming up next. If you don’t know how making money online works don’t worry you’ll understand it in a couple of minutes. We will start with the affiliate program of TubeBuddy so let’s see how much money we can make.

Affiliate Program – TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy will give you 30% commission to start with which is pretty good right? Now for everyone who never heard about affiliate marketing it works like this: You sign up to be an affiliate and get a special link that will track everyone who buys TubeBuddy in this case. That means if you share your link and someone buys a package for $100 you will get 30% –> $30 for it and that’s how easy it is to make money online sounds good to you? Then sign up for TubeBuddy now!

So you get 30% commission at the beginning but if you are a good affiliate you can even go up to 50% commission which is pretty crazy right? But that’s not even the best thing about the affiliate program from TubeBuddy because they will track EVERYONE. Which means they also track people who only use the FREE version and you can even level up to become a super affiliate without anyone buying TubeBuddy but this would be a shame right? You want people to buy so you actually earn some money right? It’s hard to get a better affiliate program than that is vidIQ capable to provide a better affiliate program? Let’s check!

vidIQ Affiliate Program

This is how the vidIQ affiliate program looks like. You only start with 15% commission which is pretty low compared to TubeBuddy right? But you also can get up to 50% commission but if we take a look at it, it also requires more sales. Which means vidIQ only tracks people who actually buy vidIQ. On top of that you need more sales on vidIQ to get 50% than you need downloads for TubeBuddy only. So what do you think is easier?

Let’s imagine you get 51 people in for vidIQ, you now only get 25% commission while you would get 40% commission with TubeBuddy. You would also get a free membership of TubeBuddy.. now I think it’s not that hard to figure out who wins the final point right? Let’s update the leaderboard for the last time.

And the winner is vidIQ. Congratulations to vidIQ for winning this little contest I did by myself. If you do your own research you may come to a different result but vidIQ won for me!

Conclusion

If you ask me which tool is better for YouTube I would recommend vidIQ. The free version of vidIQ just gives you a little bit more information in almost every case and offers a little bit more. I did all this research because I didn’t know which of the tools I want to buy to check it out. Since vidIQ won the contest I’m going to buy it and then I will also take a close look at all the features I get and if it really helps me with my YouTube channel on my journey or not.

However, maybe you just want to make some money online and you want to find a good affiliate program. If that’s the case I highly recommend to go with TubeBuddy because they have a much better affiliate program especially for beginners. That’s all from me right now! Thanks for your time and reading I hope you get the information you searched for.