The 7 Best Exploding Topics Alternatives in 2026, Compared

The best Exploding Topics alternative in 2026 is buzzabout, because it answers the question a trend list leaves open: what to say about a rising topic. Other Exploding Topics alternatives, like Glimpse and Treendly, hand you another curve. buzzabout reads the posts behind it and returns the reasons, objections and people driving it.

Spotting a trend is the easy part. Exploding Topics will tell you that creatine gummies draw 165K searches a month, up 279% in two years (vendor site, October 2026). That number helps a founder size a market. It does little for a marketer deciding what to post this week.

The marketer needs what the curve does not hold: why people want it, who drives it, and a credible way in. That takes social media research, which reads what people say instead of counting searches. This guide prices seven tools and routes each by job.

What Exploding Topics does well, and who it is for#

Exploding Topics is a trend database. It began as an independent site, became a Semrush product in 2024, and now sits inside Adobe.

• August 15, 2024. Semrush buys substantially all of Exploding Topics' assets (Semrush annual report).
• April 28, 2026. Adobe completes its acquisition of Semrush (Semrush 8-K filing).

The same annual report lists a majority stake in Brand24, the keyword tracker, bought in April 2024. That family is covered in our Brand24 alternatives guide.

How it finds trends#

Its methodology page describes three steps. Collect data, let machine-learning models flag early growth, then have analysts confirm each trend and filter out fads such as "movies, TV shows, celebrity gossip" (vendor site, October 2026).

The listed sources are social platforms, search engines, forums, news sites, e-commerce sites and podcasts. The output is a growth curve. Here is what its free topic page for creatine gummies shows (vendor site, October 2026):

• Volume. 165K searches a month.
• Growth. +279% over two years, labeled "exploding".
• Discovery date. September 29, 2021.

That date is the product working: it flagged creatine gummies in 2021, before the two-year run shown above.

Who it serves#

The plan names give it away: Entrepreneur, Investor, Business. Its solution pages target e-commerce leaders, marketing agencies, investors, market researchers and enterprise clients (vendor site, October 2026).

Users say it does that job:

"Extremely useful tool for dropshipping. Helps me find potential profitable products and verify research data of all kinds of product research tools."

Trustpilot reviewer on Exploding Topics, July 2023

"I am using exploding topics daily and it helps me identify the customer shifts and general population trends fairly well."

u/inquiring_user, r/alternativesto, August 20, 2024

Exploding Topics in October 2026: what you would be replacing#

Exploding Topics Pro holds a database of 1.1M+ trends and says it adds 1,000+ each month. Plans add trending products, trending startups, analyst-written Meta Trends and 12-month forecasts (vendor site, October 2026).

The pricing page lists Entrepreneur at $39 a month, Investor at $99 and Business at $249, each marked "Billed Annually". It shows no month-to-month price (vendor site, October 2026).

Two paid add-ons extend it. TikTok Insights costs $59 a month and shows views, likes and hashtags for products trending on TikTok. The API is a Business-plan add-on, from $1,000 a month for 1,000 requests (vendor site, October 2026).

Public reviews are few. Trustpilot shows a TrustScore of 2.1 from 10 reviews on an unclaimed profile, and warns they "may not be representative". Eight are one-star, and most describe charges after a trial or a renewal (Trustpilot):

"They billed me without notice on an annual subscription for $564 without an email, text or anything else!"

Trustpilot reviewer on Exploding Topics, October 2024

Pricing

Entrepreneur $39/mo · Investor $99/mo · Business $249/mo, billed annually; no monthly price listed (vendor site, October 2026)

Add-ons

TikTok Insights $59/mo; API from $1,000/mo, Business plan only

Best for

Founders, investors and product scouts working from search growth

Trial

7 days free on every plan; note the date it ends

Pros

• ✓Curated database of 1.1M+ trends, fads filtered out by analysts
• ✓Volume, growth, seasonality and 12-month forecasts per topic
• ✓Channel Breakdown shows activity on eight social platforms

Cons

• ✕Measures growth; extracting reasons and objections is left to you
• ✕Entrepreneur plan includes only 10 trend analyses
• ✕Billed annually; no month-to-month price listed
• ✕Trustpilot: 2.1 from 10 reviews, mostly billing complaints

What a trend list leaves open#

A trend list answers "what is rising?". A marketer's question comes after that: "what do we say about it, and to whom?". Three things stand between the curve and a brief:

1. The driver. What pain, hope or claim makes people want this now?
2. The people. Who posts about it, who argues in the comments, who sells it?
3. Your way in. Is there a claim your brand can make credibly?

None of these is a number, so no growth score can hold them. You find them by reading what people say.

Why search can trail the conversation#

This is an argument, not a measurement. A search box needs a name. People type "creatine gummies" once they know the product exists and want to buy it, compare it or check it.

The doubts, jokes and side-by-side tests that decide whether they buy happen in posts and comment threads. So search data shows demand once it has formed. The conversation shows why it is forming.

Exploding Topics agrees on the direction. Its own blog says product trends "are increasingly driven by social media hype these days" (vendor site, October 2026). Our Google Trends alternatives piece documents one case: YouTube explainers on generative engine optimization went up about six months before US searches for it passed 1,000 a month.

Where, but not what#

Exploding Topics does read social data. Its Channel Breakdown shows "activity levels" for each trend across LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook, Reddit and Pinterest, and its indicators include sentiment (vendor site, October 2026).

That tells you where the conversation is and how loud it is. Meta Trends add an analyst's note on "the 'why' behind the trend" for broad categories, and the $59 TikTok add-on lists top videos for a product (vendor site, October 2026).

Those are a start. For your specific topic, the reasons, objections and phrases still sit inside posts you have to read yourself.

Read the conversation behind the curve#

Trend research for marketers means reading the conversation behind the curve. Here is what that looks like on the same topic.

Our creatine gummies trend report, dated October 12, 2026, reads TikTok posts about the product and sorts them by what they talk about:

How we measured: the shares are copied from the public report as it read on October 22, 2026. The report sorts TikTok posts on the topic into angles. The chart shows shares, not post counts.

The driver: convenience, sold hard#

The curve said "exploding". The posts say why: gummies are an easier way to take creatine than mixing powder, and creators sell the candy taste. The convenience angle and discount codes fill over a third of the posts.

That is also the warning. The report tags deals and codes "Crowded", meaning lots of posts and weak engagement. A brand that adds one more discount code joins the crowd.

The objection: do they contain creatine?#

Skepticism makes up 3% of posts, yet it engages above the trend's average. One of the posts that beat the trend's engagement, at 1.3M views, says it plainly:

"Most creatine gummy’s don’t have any creatine in them… But somehow, they still continue to be sold?"

@trainbloom on TikTok, via our creatine gummies report

The doubt has a source. NOW, a supplement maker, tested 12 brands of creatine gummies and found 5 failed to meet label claim (SupplySide Supplement Journal, March 4, 2024).

In 2025, a SuppCo test found "four out of the six creatine gummies" it studied had "shockingly low levels of creatine per serving" (Athletech News, June 12, 2025).

The report's "What people ask" section collects the same doubt in people's own words:

• "Are creatine gummies a scam?"
• "Are the gummies way more expensive than just the powder?"
• "Is the dose aligned with what has been studied?"

The people and the way in#

The report lists five creators to work with, and the brands that show up most, led by Ovrload, ESN and Bloom Nutrition. Its summary reads like a brief: "creator-led label explainers beat discounts and candy angle posts."

It also tags skepticism "Not brand-safe". A brand should not post it, but it can answer it. If you sell creatine gummies, you now know what to say: show the label, state the dose, and answer the scam question before a commenter does.

The curve could not have told you any of that. It told you the topic was big and growing, which was true and not enough.

Exploding Topics alternatives compared#

Prices are list prices from vendor pages fetched in October 2026. Sources sit in each entry below.

What a year on the entry plan costs#

Exploding Topics lists only an annual-billed rate, so the fair comparison is one year paid up front. BuzzSumo's $159 and Exploding Topics' $39 monthly rates are multiplied by 12. Glimpse has no pricing page and Treendly prices in euros (€99 a year), so both are left out:

Exploding Topics' entry plan costs less than buzzabout Starter. The two return different things: one hands you the curve, the other the posts and reasons behind it. If the curve is all your job needs, the cheaper tool is enough.

#1 · The research pick

1. buzzabout: from a rising topic to what to say about it#

buzzabout is a social media research platform, not a trend database or a keyword tracker. You bring a topic that is rising. It collects what people say about it across Reddit, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, then extracts what matters.

1. Ask the marketer's question. "Why do people buy creatine gummies? What do they doubt?"
2. Pick the platforms. One, or all seven at once.
3. Read structure, not a feed. Reasons, objections, quotes, cohorts and shareable live charts.

What it adds to a trend list#

• The driver. The assistant mines patterns and samples real quotes for each one.
• The objection. Up to 100 comments per post, where doubt usually lives.
• The spoken claim. Speech transcribed and on-screen text read, from the $98 plan.
• The people. From Pro, AI-estimated profiles of commenters: age, occupation, interests.
• The next shift. Listening agents process new posts and push digests to Slack.

Every mention is labeled as it arrives, by hook type, CTA, narrative, emotion and intent. So you can filter a thousand posts down to the doubters, or to the hooks that work.

Who is talking, and what changes next#

Commenter profiles come from public profiles on Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook, and include OCEAN personality. Treat them as AI estimates, not survey data. Our Audiense alternatives guide compares profiling tools.

A listening agent keeps reading after the first answer. Point one at a trend and it extracts the pains and topics you configure from new posts, then sends a digest to Slack, email or a webhook. MCP connectors put the same data inside Claude or ChatGPT on every plan.

To see the kind of output before you sign up, open the free trend reports for beauty, food, health, travel and marketing topics.

Pricing

Starter $98/mo ($980/yr) · Pro $178 ($1,780/yr) · Business $450 ($4,500/yr), per buzzabout pricing

Credits

2,000, 5,000 or 20,000 a month; 1 credit per post collected, comments not counted

Best for

Marketers turning a rising topic into a brief, a claim or a campaign angle

Trial

a $1 one-day trial with 1,000 credits, followed by 50% off your first paid month (monthly plans)

Pros

• ✓The reasons, objections and exact words behind a trend
• ✓Seven social platforms in one question, comments included
• ✓Video speech and on-screen text read from the $98 plan
• ✓Commenter profiles from Pro, AI-estimated from public profiles

Cons

• ✕No search-volume data; pair it with a search tool to size demand
• ✕No ready-made trend database; you start from a topic or question
• ✕Costs more than a $39 trend list
• ✕Audience research and CSV export start on Pro ($178/mo)

Search-trend databases: Glimpse, Treendly#

If your job is the one Exploding Topics does, scouting markets and products by search growth, these two do it too. They read search demand, so they hand you curves and volumes.

2. Glimpse: Google Trends with absolute numbers#

Glimpse is a browser extension and web app. Its own guide says it is "built directly on top of Google Trends." It adds absolute search volumes, growth rates and long-tail keywords, and publishes curated trend lists by category (vendor site, October 2026).

Its homepage also lists a channel breakdown across eight social platforms, trend alerts and a forecast of next year's trend. It shows the extension at 4.91 stars from 200,000+ users (vendor site, October 2026).

Glimpse publishes no pricing page; the pricing address redirects to the homepage. The only price we found is in Glimpse's own comparison guide: "up to 10 free searches per month, with additional access starting at $99/mo" (vendor site, October 2026).

Exploding Topics vs Glimpse#

Both rank topics by search growth, and both add social channel data. The difference is the starting point:

• Glimpse starts from Google Trends: any keyword, any country, absolute volumes.
• Exploding Topics starts from 1.1M+ curated trends, with analysts filtering fads.
• Price. Glimpse: 10 free searches a month. Exploding Topics: $39 a month, billed annually.

Both are built to measure how fast a topic grows. Reading why it grows is a separate step.

Pricing

Free (10 searches a month) · no pricing page; its own comparison guide says paid access starts at $99/mo (vendor site, October 2026)

Best for

Teams that already live in Google Trends and want absolute volumes

Trial

Free plan; demo on request

Pros

• ✓Absolute search volumes on top of Google Trends data
• ✓Any keyword, any country, with alerts and forecasts
• ✓Free plan for light use

Cons

• ✕No pricing page; the $99 figure appears only in its own guide
• ✕Free plan stops at 10 searches a month
• ✕Built on search data: curves and volumes, per its own pages

3. Treendly: a curated trend list from €8 a month#

Treendly describes itself as "pre-curated Google Trends on steroids" (vendor site, October 2026). Its FAQ draws the line in two sentences: "Google Trends is for researching things you've heard of. Treendly is for finding things you haven't."

You browse curated trends by industry and country, search any keyword in any region, and get alerts when a monitored keyword starts trending. The site says 44,680 users have joined (vendor site, October 2026).

Pricing is in euros. The free plan is "forever", with unlimited searches and 3 monitored trends. Pro costs €29 a month or €99 a year, with a 14-day free trial, 25 monitored trends and 4 seats. API and MCP access is listed only on Enterprise, priced on request (vendor site, October 2026).

Pricing

Free · Pro €29/mo or €99/yr · Enterprise on request (vendor site, October 2026)

Best for

Solo founders and SEO writers scouting topics by search growth on a small budget

Trial

14 days free on Pro; the free plan has no time limit

Pros

• ✓Free plan with unlimited searches
• ✓Pro from €99 a year, with 4 seats
• ✓Full library of curated trends on Pro

Cons

• ✕Free plan monitors only 3 trends
• ✕Trend cards show curves and monthly searches, not posts
• ✕API and MCP access only on Enterprise, priced on request

Free trend lists from the platforms#

Google Trends, Pinterest Trends and TikTok Creative Center cost nothing, and each comes from the platform itself. They are a good place to build a candidate list. Each shows what is rising on one platform; reading why is left to you.

4. Google Trends: free search interest, scaled 0 to 100#

Google Trends shows search interest from a sample of Google searches. Numbers are "scaled on a range of 0 to 100 based on a topic's proportion to all searches on all topics" (Google Trends help center, October 2026).

Its Trending now page is a pure trend list. On October 22, 2026, it listed 618 US searches rising in the past 24 hours, mostly sports and news. Each row shows a volume bucket, such as "200K+", and when the rise started.

Google warns against over-reading it: "Google Trends is not a scientific poll," and the data is "not a perfect mirror of search activity" (Google Trends help center, October 2026). Our Google Trends alternatives piece makes the full case.

Pricing

Free

Best for

A free check of relative search interest, by country and time

Trial

Not needed

Pros

• ✓Free, from Google itself
• ✓Compare terms by country, region and time
• ✓Trending now lists rising searches every day

Cons

• ✕Relative 0 to 100 scale, not search counts
• ✕Built from a sample of searches
• ✕Daily lists lean toward sports and news

5. Pinterest Trends: what Pinterest users search and save#

Pinterest Trends shows "the top search, save, and shopping trends across different regions and countries," with "a historic view (up to the last two years)" (Pinterest help center, October 2026).

The overview opened without an account when we checked. Advertiser features need a Pinterest Business login, and some features "are only available for certain regions" (Pinterest help center, October 2026).

Its spotlight ranks trends by Pin saves. On October 22, 2026, the US list opened with "Plaid Sweater Styles", up 10,001% month over month. It also flags seasonal moments, shopping categories and editors' picks.

Pricing

Free; advertiser features need a Pinterest Business account

Best for

A free list of rising Pinterest searches and saves, for seasonal planning

Trial

Not needed

Pros

• ✓Free, from Pinterest's own search and save data
• ✓Seasonal moments and shopping trends flagged
• ✓Up to two years of history

Cons

• ✕Pinterest only
• ✕Some features limited to certain regions
• ✕Advertiser features need a Business login

6. TikTok Creative Center: TikTok's own hashtag charts#

TikTok Creative Center is TikTok's free inspiration hub for advertisers. Its Trends page ranks hashtags by posts and views in a region. On October 22, 2026, the US list opened with #tiktokscaryhorrorcontest: 73.5K posts and 312.2M views.

Logged out, you see the top three hashtags; the rest need a free login. The Creator tab read "Coming soon." A separate Top Ads gallery shows "high-performing auction ads on TikTok" (TikTok Creative Center, October 2026).

A hashtag rank tells you a format is spreading. Reading what the videos say, and what commenters answer, is a separate step. Our guide to TikTok social listening covers it.

Pricing

Free

Best for

Picking TikTok hashtags to join, and browsing TikTok's own top ads

Trial

Not needed

Pros

• ✓Free, from TikTok itself
• ✓Hashtags ranked by posts and views, by region and period
• ✓Top Ads gallery for creative inspiration

Cons

• ✕TikTok only
• ✕Most of each ranking needs a login
• ✕Creator rankings read "Coming soon" in October 2026

Content and PR: BuzzSumo#

BuzzSumo appears on Exploding Topics' own list of alternatives (vendor site, October 2026). It answers a different question: which articles got shared, and which journalists cover a beat.

7. BuzzSumo: most-shared content and journalist outreach#

BuzzSumo tracks web content and its social engagement. Its Content Analyzer searches an archive of 8+ billion pieces of content, and Trending Feeds show "the day's most viral posts," all published in the past 24 hours (vendor site, October 2026).

Plans start at $199 a month for one user, or $159 billed yearly. PR & Comms, at $299 ($239 yearly), adds a journalist database and coverage reports. Suite is $499 ($399), and Enterprise is $999, annual only (vendor site, October 2026).

Brandwatch bought BuzzSumo in October 2017 (TechCrunch). For more options, see our BuzzSumo alternatives guide.

Pricing

Content Creation $199/mo ($159 billed yearly) · PR & Comms $299 ($239) · Suite $499 ($399) · Enterprise $999, annual only (vendor site, October 2026)

Best for

PR teams pitching journalists and checking which articles got shared

Trial

Free trial; the pricing page does not state its length

Pros

• ✓Archive of 8+ billion pieces of content
• ✓Journalist database and coverage reports from PR & Comms
• ✓Daily feeds of the most-shared posts

Cons

• ✕Entry plan is $199 a month for one user
• ✕Journalist database needs the $299 plan
• ✕2 alerts on the entry plan

What about just asking ChatGPT what is trending?#

ChatGPT and Claude are good at explaining a trend you name. Ask why creatine gummies are popular and you get a fluent answer: convenience, taste, gym culture.

That answer comes from training data and a few pages that happen to rank. It cannot tell you that skeptical posts outperform discount posts this month, or which creators carry the topic. It has no counts, so it cannot rank one reason above another.

Ground it instead. buzzabout's MCP connectors, on every plan, let Claude or ChatGPT query your collected, labeled posts, so the assistant you already use answers from this month's conversation. Our step-by-step audience research guide shows the method.

How to choose#

From trend to brief: a five-step workflow#

Use any tool above to build the candidate list. Then do the part a list cannot:

1. Pick one candidate in your category. A trend you cannot act on is trivia.
2. Check that people discuss it. No posts means nothing to say yet.
3. Find the driver. Which pain, hope or claim do posts repeat?
4. Find the objection and the people. Read the comments: who doubts, who sells?
5. Write the brief. One provable claim, one answered objection, one format.

Steps 2 to 4 are where the time goes. buzzabout runs them as one question across seven platforms. Once you have the quotes, any assistant can draft the brief:

I am turning a rising topic into a content brief. Below are real posts
and comments about it, with links.

1. List the 3 reasons people give for wanting it, each with one quote.
2. List the 3 objections or doubts, each with one quote.
3. Name the kinds of people posting: who sells, who doubts, who asks.
4. Suggest one claim my brand could make credibly, given the objections.
5. Write a one-paragraph brief: the claim, the objection it answers,
   the format and the hook.

Topic: <topic>
My brand and product: <brand>
Posts and comments:
<paste quotes with links>

Paste quotes with their links, so every line of the brief traces back to a real post.

Frequently asked questions#

What is the best Exploding Topics alternative? For marketers who need to know why a topic is rising and what to say, buzzabout: it reads posts and comments on seven social platforms, from $98/mo. To keep scouting by search growth, Glimpse and Treendly do Exploding Topics' job.

Is there a free Exploding Topics alternative? Yes. Google Trends, Pinterest Trends and TikTok Creative Center are free. Treendly has a free plan with unlimited searches and 3 monitored trends, and Glimpse gives 10 free searches a month. buzzabout offers a $1 one-day trial with 1,000 credits, followed by 50% off your first paid month.

What is the difference between Exploding Topics and Glimpse? Both rank topics by search growth. Glimpse builds on Google Trends and adds absolute volumes for any keyword; it is free for 10 searches a month. Exploding Topics is a curated database of 1.1M+ trends, from $39 a month billed annually (vendor sites, October 2026).

Who owns Exploding Topics? Semrush, which bought substantially all of its assets on August 15, 2024 (SEC filing). Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush on April 28, 2026 (SEC filing), so Exploding Topics is now part of Adobe.

How much does Exploding Topics cost? Entrepreneur is $39 a month, Investor $99 and Business $249, billed annually, each with a 7-day free trial. The pricing page shows no month-to-month price. TikTok Insights adds $59 a month. API access is a Business add-on from $1,000 a month for 1,000 requests (vendor site, October 2026).

Is Exploding Topics a credible source? It says it combines machine-learning models with analysts who verify trends and filter out fads (vendor site, October 2026). Its growth figures measure search volume, so they describe demand, not the reasons behind it. Its 10 Trustpilot reviews mostly concern billing, not data.

Is Exploding Topics worth it? If your job is scouting markets, products or startups by search growth, the curated database and the fad filter are what you pay for. If your job is deciding what to say about a trend, you will still need the conversation behind it.

Turn your next trend into a brief#

Take the next topic your trend list flags. Ask buzzabout why people want it, what they doubt and who is talking. You get the reasons, objections and quotes that a curve leaves out.

buzzabout's pricing page has the trial on monthly plans: a $1 one-day trial with 1,000 credits, followed by 50% off your first paid month. To see the format first, open any of the free trend reports.