Buffer vs. Vista Social

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
Vista Social
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Vista Social is a social media management platform that offers features such as schedule of content, managing conversations through a universal inbox, managing reviews, social listening and reporting.
$79
per month
Pricing
BufferVista Social
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Essentials
$6
per month per channel
Team
$12
per month per channel
Professional
$79
per month
Advanced
$149
per month
Scale
$379
per month
Enterprise
$379
per month
Enterprise
Custom
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BufferVista Social
Free Trial
YesYes
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.A discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BufferVista Social
Features
BufferVista Social
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.6
Ratings
7% above category average
Vista Social
9.5
Ratings
17% above category average
Content planning and scheduling9.00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Content optimization8.00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Workflow management8.80 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
8.3
Ratings
5% above category average
Vista Social
9.2
Ratings
15% above category average
Campaign success analytics8.30 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Vista Social
9.2
Ratings
14% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges9.00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Mobile access9.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Vista Social
9.1
Ratings
16% above category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Vista Social
9.1
Ratings
14% above category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Vista Social
9.0
Ratings
15% above category average
Lead generation00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Buffer
-
Ratings
Vista Social
9.4
Ratings
11% above category average
Twitter00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BufferVista Social
Small Businesses
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
CoSchedule Marketing Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BufferVista Social
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BufferVista Social
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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When you start working with Vista Social, every major feature is well documented and has an intuitive onboarding with helpful steps. So is a good feature by itself when scaling your team is needed. The other one, on a similar line, is the live preview of the post, which helped us fine tuning the posts quickly and with no surprises. In my experience with the platform —I haven’t come across anything that didn’t do what it was supposed to.
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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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  • The design and layout of the site is simple, with the options to click through the different tools on the left hand side of the page. What I liked most about Vista Social is the ability to combine all the different tools that a social media manager needs into one platform.
  • I typically use various different apps and platforms to write down notes, assign tasks to different team members, and look at my overall content calendar for the month. It is brilliant that Vista Social is able to combine all of these into one platform.
  • When first signing up to Vista Social and exploring the platform, each page offers you a walkthrough of all of the tools available to you, which is really handy, as well as a customer support section on the right bottom hand corner.
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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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  • I think the price is quite high compared to hiring a person for the same task. This may put one off from purchasing as with a bit more time you can do the same job yourself or with an employee for much less
  • In my opinion, the interface is rather complicated visually and doesn't have an appeal. It is cramped with so many features that provide a sense of confusion whilst starting off
  • In my experience, the tutorials do leave a few questions afterwards regarding set up and this can take more time to figure out by yourself.
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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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Very effective, efficient and an integral part of our daily work. Our team members are more productive and motivated to finish projects.
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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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It's just perfect in all point because you have everything to manage your business. Keypoint is really message automatisation cause you can send message and take your time on an another point. The fact to schedule your post is also a very good point and very usefull on LinkedIn bye exemple.
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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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No answers on this topic
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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No answers on this topic
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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No answers on this topic
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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No answers on this topic
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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While they all offer basic scheduling and publishing, Vista Social stands out by combining content creation (with Canva), AI-powered captions, inbox management, task organization, and performance tracking , all in one platform. It saves time and gives me more control, without needing to jump between multiple tools.
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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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  • The DM automation feature means we're not missing out on important messages when we're off the clock (after hours essentially), which is a huge advantage in hospitality where response time is everything.
  • In most cases, time is money, and being able to manage all our platforms from one place has cut down hours of switching between apps and tabs. That in itself has boosted our company's productivity and allowed the team to respond faster to guests and potential leads.
  • The real-time insights and mentions helps us tweak content and react to trends quicker, which has increased our visibility and bookings.
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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