Neither the skylight or the tubelite is better than the other, but they do have their specific uses. Don’t use one in place of the other.
I was just in a beautiful log cabin in the mountains today where they have eight skylights in their kitchen/dining area which has vaulted wood ceilings. Any brand of tube-lites would have not looked well at all. With the skylights you can see the sky and the trees and you feel like your are partially outside. The rooms felt larger than they were and it had a real sense of spaciousness.
Tubelites would not have looked well at all. You would have seen eight large light fixture looking things on the ceiling. It would not have been nearly as dramatic.
However, just this year I installed Sun Tunnels in my laundry room and my wife’s makeup/dressing area. I should have done it years earlier. It was definitely bonus points with my wife.
So there is a place for each, just understand that full-fledged skylight companies do both and know how to recommend what would work best. Tubelite companies that all they do is install tube-lites, are not motivated to recommend a skylight.
