The AI clipper for live streams, tuned to game events and chat, compared with Vid2Shorts on the things that decide it.
Eklipse is built for live streamers: it connects to a Twitch, Kick, YouTube or Facebook channel, scores the stream on game events, audio spikes and chat activity, and queues vertical clips for posting. Vid2Shorts starts from a YouTube link rather than a channel connection, finds moments by reading what was said, and lets you make the first Short with no account at all. If you stream on Twitch or Kick, Eklipse is the right shape; if your source is a YouTube video, podcast or talk, this is.
First Short free. No account, no software, nothing to upload.
Facts on this page were read off Eklipse’s own live pages in October 2026. Prices are deliberately left out of the writing because they change often and a stale number is worse than none. Where we did not verify something, the table says so.
The first reason is the one Eklipse says itself. Its own blog, in a post updated in July 2026, states that there is no free clipping plan any more and that the product moved to fully paid in June 2026. The old free tier, with 720p exports, one stream a day and up to fifteen clips per stream, is gone. A streamer who used to clip for nothing now pays a subscription or stops, and that is when people search for an alternative.
The second reason is the source. Eklipse wants a stream to connect to, and its detection is tuned for gameplay: kills, wins, clutches, chat velocity, emote spikes. Point it at a ninety minute interview, a lecture or a podcast and none of those signals exist. The product is excellent at the thing it was built for and has little to say about talking video, which is a different kind of highlight entirely.
The third reason is scope creep. Eklipse has grown into a content agent, a content planner, a mobile app, browser tools for emotes, panels and thumbnails, and a stack of plan tiers. If all you want is to turn one recording into three good vertical clips with captions, you are standing next to a lot of software you did not ask for.
Written first and without hedging, because if one of these is the reason you are shopping, you should buy theirs and we would rather you found that out here than after paying us.
Live streams, full stop. Eklipse connects to Twitch, Kick, YouTube and Facebook channels and works from the stream itself. Vid2Shorts takes a YouTube link only; it cannot read a Twitch or Kick VOD at all, and if that is your source this comparison ends here.
Game aware detection. Its homepage says moments are scored on gameplay events, audio spikes and chat activity, tuned per game category, across more than three thousand supported games. Our ranking reads the transcript, which is the right signal for speech and the wrong one for a headshot.
The content planner and the agent. Approved clips are queued and posted to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and Facebook, and the agent prepares a batch after each stream ends. We publish to a connected channel from the dashboard but there is no post stream batch waiting for you.
A mobile app for iPhone and Android that reviews, trims, captions and posts clips. We are browser only today.
Free browser utilities around the clipping product: emote, panel, badge and thumbnail makers, VOD downloaders. None of that exists here.
No channel to connect and nothing to install. Paste a YouTube link, public or unlisted, and the first Short is made without an account. Eklipse asks you to sign up and connect a platform before you see what it does to your footage.
The moments come from the words. Auto Clips reads the whole transcript and returns ranked passages, each scored for hook, emotion, quotability and whether it stands alone, with the reason written beside it. That is the right instrument for an interview, a podcast, a talk or a reaction, and the wrong one for a clutch round, which is why these two tools rarely compete for the same video.
Captions are timed word by word from the transcript, placed clear of the bottom band where the platforms draw their own interface, with emoji and filler word removal as options. Eklipse lists editable auto captions and templates; we did not verify per word timing on their pages and the table says so.
A free tier still exists: one Short a day, up to 30 seconds, with a small watermark. A day pass covers a single busy day without a subscription. Eklipse ended free clipping in June 2026 by its own account.
A music visualizer with fourteen presets, and subject aware reframing that follows whoever is speaking across a two shot. Eklipse reframes to 9:16 with facecam layouts, which is the gaming equivalent and not the same thing.
Structural things that change once a year rather than once a week. No prices, because those move and a wrong one is the sort of thing that gets screenshotted.
| Question | Vid2Shorts | Eklipse |
|---|---|---|
| Make one without an account | Yes | No |
| Watermark on the free tier | Yes | Not checked |
| Buy a single day, not a month | Yes | Not checked |
| Captions timed word by word | Yes | Not checked |
| Music visualizer built in | Yes | No |
| Arabic and right to left captions | Yes | Not checked |
| Runs in the browser, nothing to install | Yes | Not checked |
| Publish to a channel | Yes | Yes |
| Translate the captions | Yes | Not checked |
| AI b-roll | No | Not checked |
| Team seats | No | Not checked |
| Public API | No | Not checked |
There is no free clipping plan anymore.Eklipse blog, "Is Eklipse Free?", updated July 2026
Link Twitch, YouTube, Kick, or Facebook.Eklipse homepage
The Eklipse mobile app for iPhone and Android lets you review, trim, caption, and post clips.Eklipse homepage
Live streams, full stop. Eklipse connects to Twitch, Kick, YouTube and Facebook channels and works from the stream itself. Vid2Shorts takes a YouTube link only; it cannot read a Twitch or Kick VOD at all, and if that is your source this comparison ends here.
Or if any of the other things above are the specific job you are hiring a tool for. Those features are real and we do not have them.
You want to test it on your own footage in the next two minutes without making an account, and you would rather buy a single day than a month you might not use.
Or if any part of what you post is music: a track on screen with the artwork pulsing to the bass and the words appearing as they are sung is the one thing on this page only we do.
The first Short is free, needs no account, and takes about two minutes. That is a faster way to settle this than any comparison table, including ours.
Make one free
