Exploding Topics and Google Trends share the English word "trend" and almost no contract. ET's API reads a curated table. Google, on the website or on the official alpha, answers a term. ET's own FAQ says the API cannot do custom keyword and geo lookups. That single sentence decides most bake-offs. For a third shape, keyword plus source on a Bearer POST, see the API reference and pricing.
Exploding Topics stores a verdict
Collection spans social, search, forums, news, commerce, and podcasts. Models score. Humans drop celebrity fads. The row that survives has growth, volume, indicators, and a forecast. The caller filters the table. The caller does not type a SKU Google would plot and expect ET to invent a row.
Google stores relative interest
Explore plots a 0-100 line for a typed term. The official API, per Google, returns consistently scaled interest so pulls can merge, for about 1800 days, with region and sub-region. Both are still Google search behavior. Neither is "this product will explode next quarter" unless the analyst writes that sentence.
Official alpha is still Google-only
Approval does not add TikTok or an ET-style product catalog. It removes the scrape. A team waiting on the form still has the website, a scrape client, or a SERP vendor for Google. None of those become ET.
When a curator beats a keyword box
Pick ET when the job is "show emerging products in a category I already subscribe to" and the term is allowed to be missing. Pick Google when the job is "plot this exact brand in this country." Running both is normal. Pretending they are two skins of one API is the error. ET docs: api.explodingtopics.com/docs. Google apply: Search Central.