Buffer vs. Wildfire Interactive (Discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Buffer
Score 8.4 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Buffer is a social sharing tool. When browsing content, clicking on the Buffer icon automatically stores the content and schedules posts to social media channels throughout the day.
$0
Wildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Wildfire was a social media advertising management software application that was acquired but since discontinued by Google.N/A
Pricing
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Features
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Wildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
Wildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Wildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Growave
Growave
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Echobox Social
Echobox Social
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
Sprout Social
Sprout Social
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferWildfire Interactive (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
It is a very interesting tool for entrepreneurs or CEOs of startups who do not have much time to manage social media communication and also have few resources at the beginning of their venture. It can also be convenient for small companies that do not have specific personnel with training in community management and require easy-to-use tools to carry out the basic actions of scheduled publication on social media.
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The transition to Google has been painful - key contacts are no longer available.
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Pros
  • I can plan and publish content on social channels.
  • Buffer's interface is quite tidy and generates the necessary facilities to save us time in publishing consistent content.
  • It has a special price; it is pretty affordable.
  • It has the possibility of integrating with other tools to improve its functions.
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  • Content scheduling on FB, TW, and PIN
  • Social media management
  • Basic analytics of post engagmemt
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Cons
  • Analytics-- The analytics on the Pro plan are limited at best. You can simply review your posts from the past 30 days, but you can't access any analysis (or even simple tallying of Likes, Shares, etc.) without upgrading to the Premium or Business plans, which are otherwise more than we need at the moment.
  • Publish+Reply+Analyze-- It's a bit tedious to have these basic social media functions/tools separated out as three distinct products, as well as overkill for a small nonprofit without a dedicated social media team. I imagine each tool is good at its job if you need 'em.
  • Linking to Accounts-- Buffer seems to lose touch with Facebook and LinkedIn somewhat frequently. It's vaguely annoying but very simple to fix, so I just roll with it.
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  • The entire product is quite dated - in our two years with the product, only the visuals have been updated. While other products have added things like multi-platform entries, Wildfire is essentially the same as it has been since our first experience with it.
  • In its self-service mode, the product lacks some essential features like mandatory likes and white label.
  • Embedding a whitelabel contest is a major undertaking, and requires quite a bit of work within the Facebook developer panel.
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Likelihood to Renew
Ease of use, affordability, time saved and just love for the app and the team. It's not a miracle tool that will suddenly increase your company's value or leads, you still need to put in quality posts, thoughts and content but when used regularly and with thought, you'll be happy in the long run
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Our initial contract with Wildfire Whitelabel was for $30,000/year, as we progressed we found several alternatives for significantly less. We used this to our advantage to lower the second year to $17,000 with the limitation in the level of support (they call this their "core" subscription). Support has been quite bad.

During our contract, we also asked for quotes on some custom work, but never managed to get an answer (or actual quote). Now two years into our contract, the limitations and lack of development are enough for us to find a different solution. Newcomers to the market like Rafflecopter, WooBox and PunchTab are delivering much better results for a fraction of the price
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Usability
Easy enough to use even my boss got it right away. It helps to off-set the workload to less active times, and we can preschedule way in advance, which also helps to keep the team on track as we know what we have planned and want to reach our milestones before posts go online.
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Very easy to use, almost anyone can learn how to build a comprehensive promotion.
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Reliability and Availability
Buffer is always on hand and very reliable, their software suite rarely has outages
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I have never been kicked out of Wildfire service. Always up and running.
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Performance
Buffer performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms. The one area as I have stated before is that it does not always want to automatically push to Instagram and the user will have to go do it manually. Buffer works very well pushing to other platforms. The instagram issue is the only reason buffer does not get a 10 on this section
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Easy to perform tasks and quick to upload changes to your promotions.
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Support Rating
  1. It really helped to my business to grow online.
  2. I was able to take actions mindfully as the analytics are damn good.
  3. Also used for managing clients social media accounts and it proved to be a best resource.
  4. Clients were really happy as they got high demand and growth on internet and the secret is Buffer.
  5. The user interface is really easy to understand and manage. Support is 24/7 available to help.
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Phone and email support were always available to us when we needed it.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Gave me a thorough rundown on everything the software does. Sometimes it is difficult to run through it all over the phone/internet, but I was able to figure it out myself.
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Implementation Rating
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Buffer. We had no issues switching from the platform that we were using over to buffer. Our staff did not even miss a beat when it came to posting content. It was an easy transition and I feel that is something that buffer has really done well. They have an "out of the box" usability platform
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Simple to use and very effective in increasing user engagement on both social channels and website. Noticeably helped raise TOS.
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Alternatives Considered
Both of them are great at their own levels but I find Buffer quite easy to go and the way they perform every task is quite like my way of work so I personally like Buffer more, it has helped me save my most of the time hence improved my work efficiency and also the creativity they put into my work is outstanding. The support I get whenever I run into problems they provide a quick response every time.
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Wildfire was a merely an adequate social media tool when it existed as a standalone, but it just couldn't compete against other players like Sprout, Falcon, and Sprinklr.
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Scalability
Buffer does what it say on tin as they say! you can always count on Buffer. Buffer can be scale to 25 social account with 2,000 scheduled post which is enough for most agencies or businesses
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • It has saved money by allowing us to automate our social using one person
  • It allows us to connect one channel at a time instead of wasting money on larger account management tools
  • We are making money, because it has already delivered several clients
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  • Our TOS and engagement with our fans increased when implementing this.
  • Social metrics Wildfire provided for the different brands allowed sales opportunity to increase social worth and ultimately increase cost on advertising initiatives.
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ScreenShots

Buffer Screenshots

Screenshot of The Buffer dashboardScreenshot of Customizable posting scheduleScreenshot of Tailored PostsScreenshot of List or calendar view of scheduled postsScreenshot of Browser extensionScreenshot of Social media analytics