Both are 4 valve per cylinder engines, they both breath fine.
There is no VTC (Variable Timing Control) on SOHC i-VTEC engines. They simply switch between an economy cam profile and a normal power cam profile, sort of like VTEC-e engines. They don't have the low-end torque of VVT-i engines.
Corolla's VVT-i uses timing control, so it feels more responsive across the rev range. It doesn't offer the fuel economy numbers of i-VTEC though.
Both of them should feel similar in the mid RPM range, roughly 3k+.