Distill vs Helpolos

Distill turns captioned YouTube videos into written summaries, with interviews, podcasts, and educational long-form video as its focus. Summaries are flowing prose divided into sections, and users can switch among summary, chapter, and transcript views. A player above the summary lets viewers jump to a chapter or moment, and each summary is followed by a short quiz. Distill relies on captions and reports when a video has no subtitles rather than inferring content from its title or description. It supports public captioned YouTube videos, focuses on videos roughly four minutes and longer, and does not support Shorts or very short clips. Users can paste a YouTube link or open one shared from YouTube or Safari. Guest access allows one summary a day for videos up to 30 minutes. An email-verified free account allows three daily summaries for videos up to 60 minutes, plus a saved library, sync, continued watching, and offline reading. Pro is $3.99 a month and includes unlimited summaries, videos up to two hours, 40+ languages, chapters, transcripts, and an outline. Distill is available on iOS.

Helpolos brings YouTube video analysis, transcripts, and AI chat into one workspace. Provide a public video link or use YouTube search; an analysis can return a summary, timestamped transcript, mind map, and quiz. Chat answers questions from the transcript and links responses to moments in the video. Transcripts can be searched, copied, or downloaded. Developers can use the Transcript API for timestamped plain-text transcripts or the Summarizer API for AI-generated summaries; both require an API key. The Transcript API allows five requests per second per key and returns the video’s original language without translation. A free plan includes 10 credits per day, and credits reset daily at midnight UTC without carrying over. Reopening or reloading an analyzed video uses another credit. Premium plans include 100 daily credits, extended chat context, priority processing, and priority support. Email support is included across plans, with responses within one business day. Helpolos is available on web and through an API.