These two get compared a lot, but they're not really solving the same problem. Here's an honest, non-exaggerated breakdown of what each one actually does.

vidIQ is a YouTube Studio browser extension focused on keyword research, competitor tracking, analytics overlays, and AI-assisted coaching. It has a permanent free tier with limited features, and paid plans (Boost and Max) starting at roughly $16–20/month on annual billing, going up to around $39–49/month for the Max tier with deeper AI credits and features. It's built for creators who want ongoing SEO and performance tracking directly inside YouTube Studio.

Shortsboost is a free, standalone AI tool for the content-creation side: generating titles, hooks, thumbnail concepts, and scripts from a topic; getting an AI critique on a title before you publish; breaking down why a specific Short underperformed; and building a 7-day content plan. It doesn't live inside YouTube Studio, and it doesn't do keyword-volume research or competitor analytics.

vidIQ's strength is ongoing SEO and analytics — keyword scores, trend alerts, and tracking performance over time inside Studio. Shortsboost's strength is the creative front-end — generating and stress-testing the title, hook, and script before you ever hit upload. If you want deep keyword-level SEO tracking, vidIQ covers ground Shortsboost doesn't. If you want fast, free help writing and packaging a video, that's what Shortsboost focuses on.

Yes — a lot of creators would reasonably use both for different parts of their workflow: Shortsboost for planning and packaging the video, vidIQ for ongoing keyword and analytics tracking. They're not direct substitutes for each other.

If your bottleneck is coming up with titles, hooks, and scripts rather than keyword research, Create New is free to try.