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HootSuite vs Sprout Social comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HootSuite
Ranking in Social CRM
1st
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
1st
Ranking in Social Media Analytics Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sprout Social
Ranking in Social CRM
2nd
Ranking in Social Media Management Solutions
3rd
Ranking in Social Media Analytics Software
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (10th), AI Content Creation (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of HootSuite is 13.7%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sprout Social is 9.7%, up from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Social CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HootSuite13.7%
Sprout Social9.7%
Other76.6%
Social CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Calin Balaita - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Wärtsilä
Consistent scheduling has amplified our global branding and simplified weekly content sharing
HootSuite does a good job at what it does, and I didn't have any issues with it. If I had to think about one thing that could make my experience even better, the interface on the iOS version could be a bit smoother and things could be more visible, but other than that, it works fine.
Mirella Karpiesiuk - PeerSpot reviewer
Social Engagement Manager at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized social channels have transformed daily engagement and reporting workflows
Regarding how Sprout Social can be improved, these are very minor areas. Sometimes we have this metric called action rate, which reflects how fast a message has been touched in Sprout Social, whether that is the message being tagged, responded to, or closed out. Apparently, we cannot get a 100% action rate because some responses come in that are auto-replied to, and that action rate misses that. I think this is one thing that can be improved: figuring out how to count those auto-responded messages. This is a niche area. Outside of that, I do not have much advice for improvements in Sprout Social; I truly think it is a hub of value and provides a lot for us. The user interface is great; it is super friendly. For someone who has never touched it before, I knew where everything was and maneuvered through it within a week of using it. The integrations are seamless with all of our social media accounts: Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and all of that. We can also export data and PDF files, which helps us with other projects. I see very minimal improvements needed on my end; I think it is a very valuable program that we use.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Hootsuite feels like an all-in-one tool; I can publish content on Hootsuite and then answer comments, which is what I do for my customers."
"It has a social media presence outside of the hours people are able to devote to an organization."
"I love the usability of HootSuite, and it is easy to learn; that is one of the great things."
"HootSuite has been truly useful and helpful in my organization because impressions have increased, there has been an increase in traffic, scheduling has become simpler, and approvals have been excellent."
"If you are into social media marketing or any other digital media, then you should have knowledge of HootSuite because it is the industry standard that has been helping industry professionals."
"Customer Service: Great. Technical Support: Good."
"With the centralized place for us to manage all our customer conversations and all of our social media engagement, HootSuite has helped us save a lot of time."
"HootSuite has impacted my organization positively by making my social media marketing easier by ensuring that it got posted on time."
"Using Sprout Social helps us post content within peak active windows; by having that content scheduled in advance, we can better reach our more active audience times, which has a direct correlation to increased engagement and impressions."
"We would not be able to do it without Sprout Social, and it is very easy to use; the user interface is very friendly and intuitive."
"Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization with enhanced engagements, enhanced reach for our social posts, and better ROI for our investment in our social channels."
"Sprout Social is the best; it is very good, actually, because I have used Intercom and Zendesk, but when I look at the different software I have used as a customer service agent, I would go for Sprout Social as it is more complete and easy to navigate."
"In my experience, the best features Sprout Social offers are the ability to manage multiple campaigns."
"Sprout Social has positively impacted my organization by providing me with reporting capabilities and allowing me to assess how my posts are performing."
"The only outcome I have seen in my workflow because of Sprout Social is the time, as the same thing if I do manually will cost me around maybe one day or two days, and using Sprout Social this time has shortened to maybe one hour or one and a half hour maximum."
"The best features Sprout Social offers are the ability to post across all platforms from one place, the ability to review the performance of this post in one place, and also the ability to combine all the analytics from all these platforms into one report."
 

Cons

"There are a few issues with it being somewhat glitchy and the timeline not showing up consistently as of recently, but overall, it is a great product."
"Last I checked, you can't schedule Twitter threads where each tweet is a reply to a previous tweet."
"I advise against using Hootsuite."
"Sometimes we received emails that due to some reasons, posts were not shared automatically. This was also one of the reasons why we left HootSuite."
"Before choosing HootSuite, I evaluated the sales team, which is acceptable, but I need the legal team, the finance team, and integration about the pipeline, which is not very good."
"Sometimes the suggestions or the content suggestions that the OwlyWriter AI gives are not up to the mark that we want."
"The company should reduce the pricing to make it easier for companies to deploy to larger social teams."
"The pricing would be great if it were free. It costs $99 per month, which is quite expensive."
"As of now, I have been using Sprout Social for almost two years, but there are some glitches in the back-end; sometimes the posts are not integrated or do not come with the proper details, proper dates, or proper content."
"I know Sprout Social is expensive; it is on the higher side."
"Currently, in the pilots that I have done, I have not found it to be very highly accurate, so there is a felt need to get improvements in those areas."
"Maybe trying to figure out the reason why sometimes the engagement could be less when posted through Sprout Social rather than manually."
"There is a limitation for us with Sprout Social in publishing boosted content within LinkedIn, and we would appreciate that to be improved."
"Sometimes, when it comes to user experience, it's really hard to tag businesses in the copy because the way they appear in the dropdown is really slow, and it doesn't always find them, even when I use the at symbol to tag them."
"Sprout Social can be improved because the user experience of having hundreds of channels to navigate can be quite fiddly, especially when trying to bulk post."
"My advice to others considering Sprout Social is that I believe it is a good platform to use temporarily for some clients, but it does not scale well for growth."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​I have only used the free versions.​"
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Media Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with HootSuite?
I think HootSuite can be improved with a better user interface. I believe it could be a little clearer on the instructions.
What is your primary use case for HootSuite?
My main use case for HootSuite is marketing towards social media. A specific example of how I used HootSuite for my marketing is that I posted social media content for my law firm. HootSuite helped...
What advice do you have for others considering HootSuite?
My advice to others looking into using HootSuite is to check it out, try it out, and see if it works for you. I gave this product a rating of 8.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sprout Social?
We do not mind the setup cost because the organization provides whatever we are asking for, and we are just working on it. We do not know much about pricing and setup costs as we have a separate te...
What needs improvement with Sprout Social?
I think enhanced AI features as well as APIs to talk to CRM programs would certainly make Sprout Social more efficient. Regarding Sprout Social's AI capabilities, I currently think they manage it w...
What is your primary use case for Sprout Social?
My main use case for Sprout Social is management of the social media channels at Harman, where we manage it for eight plus brands across key platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, an...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Vega, TicketLeap, Radio Italia, The PureMatter Agency, Kiva, The Vancouver Canucks
Hyatt, Stanford University, Coldwell Banker, Razorfish, UPS, Box, Zipcar, PepsiCo, YogurtLand, Dove, TechSmith
Find out what your peers are saying about HootSuite vs. Sprout Social and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
916,117 professionals have used our research since 2012.