A gold ETF and a gold ETF fund of funds both aim at the gold price. They are not the same product. One is a share on the NSE. The other is a mutual fund wrapped around those shares.
A gold ETF is the direct holding
You buy a gold ETF in a demat account, during market hours, at the last traded price. Nippon Gold BeES, Tata, SBI, HDFC, ICICI, and Kotak are the names that show up in gold ETF price searches. The metal reference for the day is the gold rate today. The exchange quote per 10 grams is the MCX gold price.
The cost you can read in public is the scheme's expense ratio, plus whatever brokerage your broker charges. The price you pay can sit above or below the gold in the fund. That gap is the iNAV premium or discount. Makro shows it after you sign in. This page does not.
A fund of funds buys the ETF for you
A gold ETF fund of funds, including the HDFC gold ETF fund of funds people search for, holds units of a gold ETF inside a mutual-fund structure. You can buy it without placing an NSE order yourself. You pay the FOF's own expense ratio on top of the underlying ETF's costs. That extra layer is the reason a FOF is usually more expensive than holding the ETF directly.
The FOF is the practical route when you do not want a demat trade, or when a SIP into a mutual fund is the account you already use. It is a worse route when you already have a demat account and you want the thinner cost of the ETF.
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View Live CFTC Data →Which one to use
Use the gold ETF when you can buy on the NSE and you will check the expense ratio and, after signing in, the iNAV gap. Use the fund of funds when the mutual-fund route is the one you will actually stick to. Neither choice is a view on whether gold itself is cheap. For that, start with the gold rate today and the note on whether a daily sentiment report can tell you to buy.