Vista Social vs. Hootsuite: Which Tool is Best for Your Brand?

Choosing the right social media tool can change the way your brand shows up online, and that’s why so many teams compare Vista Social vs. Hootsuite before they decide. With 5.66 billion people scrolling every day, you can’t afford a platform that slows you down or makes posting harder than it should be.

Hootsuite is the long-time favorite many marketers know. Vista Social is the newer, faster option built to help you manage your brand without the clutter or heavy cost.

If you’re stuck choosing between the two, you’re in the right place. This blog will break down how each tool works in a simple and clear way. By the end, you’ll know which platform fits your brand, keeps you on track, and helps you grow with less effort.

Vista Social vs. Hootsuite: Comparison table

Below is a straightforward comparison to help you decide which tool matches your workflow.

Feature	Vista Social	Hootsuite
Social media publishing	Publish and schedule across many networks including short-form videos, with tagging, trending audio/hashtags support, bulk & queue publishing,  best time to post recommendations,  and a built-in media library	Supports scheduled posts, Stories, Pinterest pins, bulk posting by plan, best time to post recommendations, and media library
Social media analytics	Advanced reporting dashboards including social platform performance, sentiment analysis, review report, post performance report, team performance report, and competitor analysis	Provides basic analytics on lower plans; deeper analytics, customizable reports, and competitor benchmarking (up to 20 competitors) on higher tiers
Social media engagement	Unified inbox, auto‑reply tools, comment management, DM automation, and engagement tracking	Aggregated comments, DMs, mentions via Streams; includes inbox automation and basic workflow features depending on plan
Social advertising	Supports boosting in-app, but does not natively provide a full ad manager; offers paid performance report, giving post-ad performance overviews	Provides tools for boosting posts, basic ad creation, and ad performance tracking alongside organic posts
Social listening	Basic listening tools built-in, with add-on for more robust listening for keywords, hashtags, audience mentions; tracks conversations across social networks, web, and review sites	Social listening available only with Enterprise (Talkwalker) addon; standard plans offer limited mention-search windows
Review management	Includes review management integrated with major review sites (Google, Yelp, etc.) for tracking and responding to feedback	No built-in native review management; reputation monitoring requires third-party integrations or Enterprise add-ons
Team collaboration	Offers roles & permissions, shared calendars, content approval workflows, collaborative content creation, and multi-user support (limits depend on plan)	Includes team features like message assignment, internal comments, approval workflows (in higher plans), and scalable user seats on Enterprise levels
Artificial intelligence	AI for content ideas, scheduling recommendations, DM automation, smart inbox workflows, publishing automation, plus MCP integration to work directly in AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude	AI-assisted caption/hashtag generation; advanced automation (chatbots, advanced inbox) limited to Enterprise
Automation	Smart scheduling queues, bulk publishing, auto content curation, auto comment/reply tools, DM automations	Scheduled posting and reminders, limited workflow automation on higher plans
Employee advocacy	Employee advocacy add-on for any plan to let team members share brand content with pre-approved messaging	Employee advocacy available as an add-on for the Enterprise plan only
Integrations	Integrates with different social media and third party apps, like business intelligence apps, help desk software, review sites, and more	Integrates with 30+ social networks. You can also customize your dashboard with over 100 apps and integrations
Pricing	Starts at $64/month, billed annually for three users for Professional plans, scaling to custom Enterprise plans	Starts at $99 per user/month, billed annually) for Standard plans; can go as high as $249 per user/month, and a custom pricing for Enterprise
G2 rating	4.8/5 ⭐ (1,084 reviews)	4.3/5 ⭐ (6,624 reviews)

Vista Social vs. Hootsuite: Two social media management tools compared

Managing social media can feel overwhelming. Posting, tracking, and engaging across multiple platforms eats up hours every week. Tools like Vista Social and Hootsuite promise to simplify this process, but they do it in very different ways. 

Here’s an in-depth look at Vista Social vs. Hootsuite to help you figure out which works best for your brand.

Social media publishing

When it comes to social media publishing and scheduling, both Vista Social and Hootsuite allow users to manage multiple platforms from a single dashboard, but their approaches differ significantly.

Vista Social excels in modern content formats, including short-form videos, Instagram Reels, TikTok posts, and trending audio integration. Its dashboard is designed to be intuitive and beginner-friendly, making it easy to navigate even for users managing high content volume. 

It also features a smart social media calendar that allows teams to visualize posts across all platforms and schedule content at the best times for engagement. 

With bulk scheduling, content queues, a built-in media library, and seamless cross-platform posting, users can create once and publish everywhere in just a few clicks.

Below is a quick peek at Vista Social’s media library:

Hootsuite, on the other hand, focuses more on classic social media workflows. It supports scheduled posts, Stories, Pinterest pins, and “best time to post” recommendations to optimize reach. 

Integration with Canva and Adobe Express templates streamlines the content creation process, but the platform is less optimized for newer short-form video trends. 

For teams prioritizing structured posting across traditional social channels, Hootsuite remains a reliable choice, while Vista Social is better suited for those looking to leverage modern formats and audience engagement tactics.

Social media analytics

Social media analytics is an area where the two platforms offer different levels of insight. Vista Social provides advanced dashboards that track social profile performance, audience sentiment, post-level engagement, competitor comparisons, review analysis, and even team performance metrics. 

Many of these analytics are available across plans, giving small teams and agencies access to comprehensive insights without requiring top-tier subscriptions. This broad reporting functionality allows businesses to understand both quantitative metrics and qualitative sentiment, which is essential for refining strategy and optimizing engagement.

Hootsuite also offers analytics, but the depth and accessibility of these features depend heavily on your plan. 

Basic metrics are included in lower-tier subscriptions, but more advanced functionalities, like customizable reports, competitor benchmarking, and inbox performance tracking, are restricted to Advanced and Enterprise tiers. 

While Hootsuite is ideal for businesses needing enterprise-level reporting with strong customization options, Vista Social provides more accessible, integrated analytics that combine performance and sentiment insights for a complete picture.

Social media engagement

Engagement and inbox management are critical for maintaining strong audience relationships. 

Vista Social provides a unified inbox that consolidates comments, DMs, and mentions from all platforms, with auto-reply tools, DM automation, and engagement tracking. This allows teams to respond efficiently and ensure no message is overlooked. 

Below is the unified inbox of Vista Social where users can easily manage all messages, mentions, and comments across their social media profiles.

Hootsuite offers engagement features as well, through both its Streams interface, which aggregates comments, mentions, and DMs, as well as its Social Inbox. 

Basic automation is available depending on the plan, but advanced workflows such as message routing, inbox analytics, and comment prioritization are limited to higher-tier subscriptions. 

Teams already familiar with Hootsuite’s legacy system may find it reliable, but Vista Social’s integrated approach often provides a smoother, more centralized solution, particularly for teams managing multiple platforms and requiring advanced collaboration.

Social advertising

When it comes to social advertising, Hootsuite provides tools for boosting posts, creating basic ad campaigns, and tracking ad performance alongside organic content. 

This allows marketers to manage paid campaigns directly within the platform and analyze ROI efficiently. Ads and boosts can be monitored in context with organic engagement, providing a more comprehensive view of a brand’s overall social performance.

Vista Social does not include a native ad manager, but users can boost posts across a number of platforms right inside the calendar.

Vista Social also offers post-performance reporting that can give insights into how paid promotions are performing in comparison with organic efforts. 

While this approach provides useful data for evaluating boosts and campaigns, actual ad creation and management must be handled outside the platform. 

For brands heavily reliant on paid advertising campaigns, Hootsuite’s integrated ad tools may be more convenient. Vista Social, meanwhile, is ideal for organizations prioritizing organic growth and multi-platform content tracking without the complexity of full-scale ad management.

Social listening

Social listening helps brands understand what people are saying online about their products, services, or industry. 

Vista Social offers two options for social listening—the ability to track specific keywords within your own platform engagement, or an add-on for tracking specific keywords in public posts across multiple platforms, including social media and web feeds. It also curates relevant content automatically, providing alerts and generates actionable insights without extra effort.

Hootsuite offers a couple of different options for social listening. First, it allows users to create Streams to track mentions, news, and social activity. While this works for basic monitoring, the process is more manual—teams need to check Streams and analyze data themselves. Hootsuite will show the mentions, but your team must manually analyze trends and decide how to respond. 

Second, users can use Quick Search to see data about a certain topic across different platforms.

More advanced social listening requires add-ons or integrations with their other tool Talkwalker.

Review management

Online reviews have a direct impact on a brand’s reputation and credibility. 

Vista Social tracks reviews from major platforms like Yelp, TrustPilot, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable, all within a single dashboard. Notifications alert your team to new reviews, allowing for quick responses to both positive and negative feedback. This helps protect the brand’s reputation, build trust with customers, and maintain high ratings across platforms.

Hootsuite, in contrast, only provides review management options for Enterprise plans. Brands relying heavily on reviews would need to invest heavily or utilize third-party integrations/add-ons to manage them effectively. 

Without a centralized system, teams risk missing reviews or responding too late, potentially harming customer trust. For example, if a restaurant receives multiple reviews in a day, Vista Social will alert the team and streamline responses, ensuring timely engagement and preserving the brand’s image.

Team collaboration

Effective team collaboration is crucial for producing consistent social content and managing workflows. 

Vista Social supports unlimited users (Enterprise plan), flexible roles and permissions, shared content calendars, content approval workflows, and collaborative publishing. This means everyone on the team knows what content is scheduled and when posts go live. It’s especially helpful for agencies or businesses managing multiple clients or brands.

Hootsuite also offers team collaboration features, including message assignment, internal comments, and approval workflows. However, many of the more advanced collaboration tools are only available in higher-tier plans.

Growing teams or agencies with multiple accounts may find it easier to scale and coordinate with Vista Social, as collaboration features are more accessible and integrated across its plans.

Artificial intelligence

Using AI for social media management can save time, optimize content, and improve engagement. Vista Social leverages an AI assistant powered by ChatGPT that helps you with your captions, and content idea generation. 

Vista social can also help with finding trending audio and even scheduling workflows. Even with helping you generate hashtags with its free AI hashtag generator that anyone can use. 

Vista Social also offers an MCP integration that lets users manage their social media presence without ever leaving their AI tool’s chat interface. Hop into ChatGPT and:

• Create and publish posts
• Analyze performance
• Get strategy recommendations
• Read and respond to comments

Hootsuite also provides AI features that vary by plan. Most AI functions focus on content suggestions, such as caption or hashtag generation. 

Automation

One major strength of Vista Social is its emphasis on automation—not just for scheduling posts, but for messaging, workflows, and repetitive tasks. 

Vista Social’s DM automation makes it possible to create automated workflows that generate leads, boost followers, and send external links—all automatically, behind-the-scenes.

In contrast, Hootsuite also provides automation features—but its automation tends to be more basic (or gated behind higher‑tier plans). 

For example, standard scheduling automation and basic DM/message automation are available, but more advanced automation (like automated workflows, routing, compliance checks, or automated inbox management) tends to be part of its enterprise‑level or add‑on offerings. 

For agencies or brands that need heavy automation across many accounts/messages, Vista Social’s more unified and “out‑of‑the‑box” automation may save more time and reduce overhead.

Employee advocacy

Employee advocacy allows brands to amplify their reach by enabling employees or team members to share pre-approved content on their personal social networks. 

Vista Social provides this feature as an optional add-on to any of its pricing plans. By default, up to 3 employees (advocates) can participate for free, making it ideal for small teams or agencies. 

For larger teams that want more employees to share content, Vista Social offers a dedicated Advocacy plan, which combines social publishing, analytics, and engagement tools with employee advocacy as its primary focus. 

$199/month covers 25 employees, allowing organizations to expand their advocacy program as needed without paying for unused seats. Features include unlimited posts, content approval workflows, reporting dashboards, leaderboard tracking, optimal send times, and AI assistance for crafting posts. 

Hootsuite, by comparison, offers employee advocacy through its Amplify program, which is available only on its Enterprise or highest-tier plans. 

While powerful, this makes employee advocacy more expensive and less accessible for small to mid-sized businesses. 

Smaller teams may find Vista Social’s flexible add-on model or dedicated Advocacy plan more cost-effective and easier to scale, especially if they want to engage a moderate number of employees without committing to a full enterprise subscription.

Integrations

Vista Social offers an exceptionally comprehensive set of integrations that covers almost every aspect of social media management. 

From publishing and engagement to analytics, review management, and digital asset libraries, Vista Social connects with major social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X/Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Threads, Bluesky, and more. 

Beyond social networks, it integrates with business intelligence tools like Google Looker Studio, help desk platforms like Zendesk, link tracking tools like Bitly, and cloud storage services including Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. 

Vista Social also connects with workflow automation tools like Zapier and Make, and even supports AI desktop tools such as ChatGPT or Claude. This flexibility enables teams to manage publishing, monitoring, analytics, and automated workflows from a single centralized platform, making it highly adaptable for different business needs.

Hootsuite also provides a robust integration ecosystem. Users can manage major social networks including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Threads, Pinterest, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Bluesky. 

Hootsuite further allows integration with business tools like Salesforce, Monday.com, Wrike, ReviewTrackers, Slack, and Proofpoint, as well as content and video platforms like Vidyard and OneClick.bio. 

Hootsuite also provides an RSS Syndicator for sharing content from external sources. While Hootsuite offers a large number of third-party integrations (100+ apps), some advanced analytics, automation, and review management integrations may require higher-tier plans or enterprise add-ons, making Vista Social’s all-in-one approach slightly more accessible for teams that want most features without extra costs.

Pricing

Vista Social plans:

• Professional: $79/month for 15 profiles, 3 users
• Advanced: $149/month for 30 profiles, 6 users
• Scale: $379/month for 70 profiles, 10 users, white-label, unlimited AI
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for unlimited users

In addition to these core plans, Vista Social offers Employee Advocacy as an optional add-on. By default, up to 3 employees can participate for free. For larger teams, the Advocacy plan is much better, pricing scales are $199/month covering 25 employees. 

External listeners is also an add-on starting at $75/month/listener.

Hootsuite plans:

• Standard: $99/month per user for 10 accounts
• Advanced: $249/month per user for unlimited accounts and team workflows
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Vista Social gives more features for less, especially for small to mid-sized teams. Hootsuite works for big teams running paid campaigns but can get expensive quickly.

Create your Vista Social account today

Choosing the right social media tool can make or break your brand’s online presence. When comparing Vista Social vs Hootsuite, Vista Social clearly gives you the edge.

It brings everything you need together. You get easy scheduling, clear analytics, and simple engagement tracking. There are no confusing menus or hidden fees. You’ll save time and focus on creating content your audience loves.

Don’t settle for tools that slow you down. Take control of your social media and make smarter decisions for your brand. Start by creating your free Vista Social account today.

Vista Social vs. Hootsuite FAQs

What tools are better than Hootsuite? 

Many users prefer Vista Social for its easy-to-use interface and detailed analytics. Buffer and Sprout Social are also popular alternatives, praised for simple scheduling and clear reporting. The right tool depends on your brand’s needs, team size, and what features you value most.

What are the biggest downsides of Hootsuite? 

Hootsuite can feel overwhelming due to its many features. Its dashboard may confuse new users, slowing down the learning process. Additionally, it tends to be more expensive, which could be a challenge for small businesses or brands just starting their social media journey.

What is the best social media management tool? 

The best tool depends on your goals. Vista Social is perfect for brands that value engagement, content performance, and an easy-to-navigate platform. Hootsuite works best for teams that need a wide range of features and manage many accounts at once. Testing both platforms can help you decide which fits your workflow, budget, and brand strategy.