Hootsuite vs.Buffer: Which Is Best - Pros, Cons, and the Best Alternative

Who Is Buffer Best Suited For?

If you’re an individual creator or a small business owner, chances are that your goals and aspirations will vary significantly from a large organization or an established brand. Maybe you’re in the initial stage of your journey.

You just need an easy-to-use tool that can help you schedule posts, track basic analytics, and manage multiple accounts seamlessly. You also do not want to overspend on features you’ll likely not need at this stage.In these cases, Buffer may be a suitable option for your business.

It also offers you a plethora of features like analytics including engagement, best times to post, paid post analysis, metric insights, etc.

You can add unlimited users to Buffer. However, access management is not nearly as good as Hootsuite. Buffer also allows you to upload images from the cloud, Canva, Unsplash and Google Photos.

The ‘Idea’ feature on Buffers lets you store and collaborate on your rough ideas. More impressively, Buffers can help you create and customize a trackable landing page.

Here are a few pros and cons of Buffer in comparison to its competitors:

What’s Working for Buffer – The Pros

Simplicity: Buffer’s easy-to-use interface and fairly straightforward features are one of its strongest selling points. The user-friendly interface makes the tool accessible to individuals from all backgrounds, be they absolute beginners or experienced social media marketers.
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Affordability: Buffer offers a very flexible pricing plan starting from a $0 aimed at small businesses and individual creators to $1200 per year plans aimed at marketing agencies. You can also choose between monthly and yearly billing cycles. This makes it a very cost-effective option for individuals and small businesses.

‍Solid Focus on Core Features: Buffer excels in its core function – to simplify social media management. From scheduling to analytics to team collaborations, Buffer’s product managers have maintained a rock-solid focus on the core features, providing a streamlined user experience without needless complexity.

Strong Mobile App: Buffer carries forward its simple and effective user interface to its mobile app. Available for Google and Android, the Buffer mobile app allows you to do everything from planning, and scheduling to tracking analytics on the go, adding a factor of convenience for busy users.

‍Positive User Experience: Buffer has built its reputation for being a reliable partner by mastering the art of customer support. Many users have praised Buffer’s empathetic approach and quick assistance, contributing to the platform’s popularity.

What’s Not Working for Buffer – The Cons

Lack of Advanced Features: Despite offering many essential functions par excellence, some advanced users have voiced their discontent at the lack of more advanced capabilities found in other tools, such as in-depth social listening and advanced analytics.

Scalability Limitations: Buffer is great for individual creators and small businesses. However, it struggles to cater to larger business models which may require complex social media strategies and a high volume of content. This limits its scalability, especially for advanced users.

Buffer AI Assistant: While Buffer does come with an in-built AI assistant, users have opined that it may not be that effective. Notably, it cannot turn web content into social media posts or repurpose posts.

Buffer – A Pocket-Friendly Option

Currently, Buffer offers four plans - Free ($0), Essentials ($60 billed yearly), Team ($120 billed yearly) and Agency ($1200 billed yearly).

Buffer offers users the flexibility to select between a monthly or a yearly billing cycle. The free plan only requires the user to create a Buffer account, in return for access to basic features like planning and publishing tools, a landing page builder and a basic version of Buffer AI assistant. You can also connect up to 3 social media channels.

However, should you opt for any of their paid plans and choose to increase the number of your channels, you’ll have to incur an additional cost per channel. The amount varies depending on the paid plan.

Who Should Choose Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a powerful social media management tool that offers a more exhaustive suite of features as compared to Buffer. Its advanced capabilities, including social listening, team management, and in-depth analytics, make it an ideal choice for organizations with complex social media strategies.

Right off the bat, Hootsuite helps you bring all your private messages and public comments on a single dashboard. It also allows you to schedule and publish ads on Meta (formerly Facebook), Instagram, and LinkedIn. Something that’s missing from Buffer. Hootsuite allows you to link up to 50 social media accounts and bulk schedule up to 350 posts at once.

All this while connecting with all the major social media platforms including Meta (formerly Facebook), YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Pinterest and more. It also offers 100+ integrations with third-party tools like Google My Business, HubSpot, etc., to further streamline your social media operation.

We’ve listed some pros and cons of Hootsuite below:

Why Choose Hootsuite – The Pros

Comprehensive Feature Set: With Hootsuite, you get access to an exhaustive range of features. Besides basic scheduling and analytics, Hootsuite also offers advanced capabilities like social listening, benchmarking reports (based on industry), and the ability to manage complex teams.

‍Scalability for Growth: From small businesses to large enterprises, Hootsuite has been designed to handle your social media needs throughout all the stages of your growth. Supporting 50 social media channels with the ability to bulk schedule up to 350 posts at once, Hootsuite can easily adapt to complex social media strategies.

‍Seamless Integration: Hootsuite offers 100+ integrations that bring all your tools to one place. You can link your social media networks, track Google reviews, access Google Drive, get links in bio pages, and integrate your CRM data in your dashboard seamlessly among others.

‍Excellent Social Listening: Hootsuite comes equipped with a top-of-the-line social listening feature which is also one of its unique selling points. You can choose the target location (USA, India, Europe, etc.), pop in a brand name or a topic you want to analyze and voila! Hootsuite will provide you with a detailed report on what people are saying about the keyword for a period of up to 30 days. The social listening feature allows you to track brand mentions, and monitor trends and content topics.

‍OwlyWriter AI: OwlyWriter AI is Hootsuite’s AI assistant and if users are to be believed, it’s very impressive. Based on 15+ years of Hootsuite’s expertise, OwlyWriter AI brings to the table winning content formulas for every network. It can repurpose your top posts, turn web content into social media posts, and even create holiday-centric social media content in a jiffy.

Challenges of Hootsuite – The Cons

Steep Learning Curve: The very things that give Hootsuite an edge over Buffer also go against it. Hootsuite’s feature-heavy and complicated dashboard can significantly steepen the learning curve for new users. Some users have complained that the home page can appear cluttered and difficult to navigate to the point, where referring to demo videos becomes necessary to be able to navigate the home page.

‍Hootsuite Is Expensive: One of the biggest drawbacks of Hootsuite is its price point. At $2988 per year (without discount), Hootsuite’s mid-range plan for 3 users and 20 social media accounts costs more than twice as much as Buffer’s most expensive plan. There’s no free plan.

‍Platform Coverage: Despite the steep pricing, Hootsuite surprisingly cannot connect to a few social media platforms. Specifically, Mastodon, Bluesky, Shopify stores and Google Business. However, it does connect with WhatsApp Business, which is missing from Buffer’s repertoire.

Hootsuite – Premium Platform With an Expensive Price Tag

Hootsuite currently offers three price plans, all of which are paid. These include the Professional plan for 1 user ($99 per month billed yearly), Team plan for 3 users ($249 per month billed yearly) and Enterprise Plan for 5 users (price not listed on the website) with the ability to add more users for additional pay. Currently, Hootsuite does not offer any free plans. Discover the best Hootsuite alternatives.

Highperformr – A Powerful Alternative to Buffer and Hootsuite

Both Buffer and Hootsuite are popular and powerful platforms catering to thousands of users across the globe. While Buffer is a pocket-friendly, easy-to-use tool, it lacks the sophistication and advanced features of Hootsuite. In the same way, Hootsuite’s powerful arsenal of features makes it a formidable tool but the steep price tag can be a deal breaker.

In this scenario, it makes sense to ask if there’s a third alternative which takes the middle ground, combining the ease and pocket-friendliness of Buffer with the feature-packed punch of Hootsuite. Spoiler alert! A powerful alternative indeed exists in the form of Highperformr – one of the newest tools on the block.

Where Highperformr Performs – The Advantages Over Buffer and Hootsuite

Social AI: Proudly marketed as the unique selling point of the platform, the Social AI feature definitely stands out. Powered by multiple Gen AI and LLM models, Social AI can help you create a week’s worth of content in a matter of minutes. It can convert ideas, keywords, blogs, or other collateral into social media posts in your tone of voice and writing style. This can further be refined by providing custom prompts.

‍In-depth Analytics: Highperformr’s in-depth analytics help you truly understand the impact of your social media presence. It allows you to identify exactly what’s working and why, helps you ensure that your posts are reaching the intended target audience, ensures consistency and empowers you to make data-driven decisions to refine your social media strategy.

‍Scalability: Highperformr helps you plan, create, and schedule your social media content across multiple platforms from a single, intuitive dashboard effortlessly. A unified content calendar helps you manage all your posts in one place, thus ensuring a consistent and strategic posting schedule. You can also automate reposts, post threads with time delays, and cross-post between LinkedIn and X(Twitter) to increase visibility and engagement. There’s also an option to schedule unlimited posts by setting a specific date and time or picking from open calendar slots.

‍Deep Customization: With Highperformr, you can choose from hundreds of templates, personalize them and just publish them instantly. Tailor templates to match your brand’s look and feel, create polished, eye-catching posts without starting from scratch or choose from a range of template styles suitable for different types of content and topics.

To Conclude

All three social media platforms – Buffer, Hootsuite, and Highperformr – have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. However, what sets Highperformr apart from its two powerful rivals is the ability to offer a comfortable middle path for users who want the simplicity of the former and the advanced features of the latter while remaining cost-effective.

Moreover, Highperformr’s user-friendly interface and intuitive design also make it super easy for teams of all sizes to collaborate effectively on social media campaigns. However, beyond the technicalities, Highperformr also stands out by its commitment to customer success with a dedicated and empathetic support team that is always available to assist users with any queries.

Finally, all the factors considered, Highperformr stands out as a sensible choice for that business which is seeking a comprehensive and efficient social media management solution. But don’t take our word for it. Try Highperformr for free today!