We were so much more impressed with Buffer than Hootsuite. Buffer has a more modern interface and offers a better user experience. Not only that, you can use Buffer on the free tier and it's still 10x better than the $99/month version of Hootsuite 😅
What you won't get with Buffer is as in-depth analytics and reporting (e.g. if you are an enterprise company have managers managing managers and you need deep analytics and reports then Hootsuite will likely be a better fit). That said, for small or medium sized businesses, Buffer is the clear winner.
We believe there are better options available in this category, read below to learn what this software does well, and what they could do better. ⤵
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All-you-need social media platform for small businesses.
Buffer is the best all-around social media scheduler. While it's still not perfect (API limitations with social media apps make it hard for any of these scheduling apps to be), it's the closest we found.
Buffer has the best interface and user experience, it is a modern social media management tool, while the others out there like Metricool and Hootsuite feel quite outdated and klunky, and are also less stable and reliable.
We used Buffer to schedule short form video content on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X and the platform worked as we'd except (with one LinkedIn exception—see full Buffer Review for details).
We decided to skip using Buffer for YouTube Shorts as you can't add a thumbnail from Buffer or add in any tags, and since YouTube is our most important social media platform, we didn't want to compromise on the limitations. We also decided to skip using Buffer for TikTok as you cannot format the caption (TikTok API limitation).
Not only is Buffer is the best all around social media scheduling tool, it also has a super generous free version for up to 3 social media platforms. Definitely worth giving a shot.
Helping large teams prove social media ROI
Hootsuite has been around the longest out of all the social media management platforms and with that, the tool certainly feels like you're stepping back in time 😅 Hootsuite's interface is much more clunky and outdated when compared to something like Buffer, for example.
Hootsuite is catering to large enterprise teams and have gone very deep into building social analytics, competitive benchmarking, permissions, approvals and reports. With that, their pricing starts at $99/month, but even this tier is restrictive as most of the features we mentioned unlock on the enterprise plan.
If you are a small business, or a modern social media agency, we'd recommend staying away from Hootsuite as they are much better social media scheduling tools available. For instance, Buffer has a free tier and can do everything Hootsuite does for scheduling and content planning on their $99/month tier.
If you don't have 1000+ employees at your company, skip Hootsuite altogether.
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