Sorry if I confused you - I responded to a different person on a different page - to you
I deleted it so if you didn't see it never-mind.
You would have to do a side by side to prove that to me. F
or the most part, every grow medium is just a conveyance for whatever you are feeding them.
The only exception is soil which can actually contain all you need for feeding them for the first month or so. Water in hydro, coco, perlite, etc are all neutral (food-wise) until you add something.
I think first and foremost is the lighting. More light=more growth=fatter buds. The most light you can get until you get problems. Also the right light. I find the QB's to fill that part the best (for me)
You can control most of the bud growth by pruning.
Want bigger buds, more buds, etc? Look into all the different training and pruning techniques and any LST or HST you haven't tried yet. Manifolds produce fat buds. You can also just prune everything under the tops at flip (lollipop), or wait until about week 3 of flower and then prune all stuff that hasn't made it to the light. On some of the smaller tops that were just above the cut, I will prune lower nodes from them and leave just the tops. It will still stretch more and fill in. Also - leave the leaves
if you aren't keeping a shoot, wait for it to get big enough to snip it, but leave the fan leaf.
It is also the genetics of the plant, what you feed them etc.