Hootsuite vs. Meltwater: Which is the best social media tool?

Hootsuite is the only social listening suite made for social marketers by social marketers. That means it outperforms Meltwater across the board—from listening to sentiment analysis to publishing and analyzing social media content.

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Take it from real users: Hootsuite wins.

93%

93% of users would buy Hootsuite again, while only 61% would buy Meltwater again.

Source: Source: Trustradius

95%

95% of Hootsuite users are happy with the feature set, while only 71% of Meltwater users are happy with the feature set.

Source: Source: Trustradius

99%

99% of Hootsuite users felt implementation went as expected, compared to only 81% of Meltwater users.

Source:

Spoiler alert: Hootsuite is the best social media growth tool on the market. Here’s why.

The most data coverage

With Hootsuite Listening, you can listen across 150+ million websites and twice as many social media networks as Meltwater.

AI tools you won’t find anywhere else

Hootsuite has a proprietary AI social listening engine, while Meltwater relies on Microsoft’s AI and requires users to use Microsoft 365.

More advanced search and reporting

Hootsuite has more advanced features than Meltwater, with deeper booleans and filtering and more customized reporting.

One social media hub to rule them all

Hootsuite lets you publish, analyze, and reply to messages and comments across more platforms than Meltwater.

Compare Hootsuite and Meltwater Features

Feature	Hootsuite	Meltwater

General
Price	Starts at $99	Users report paying around $12,000 per user per year
Free trial available	Yes	No
Transparent pricing	Yes	No, must speak to sales
Integrations	100+	6
Publish and analyze
User-friendly platform	Yes	No

Social listening and consumer research
Websites	150 million+	270,000+
Social media channels	30+	15
Countries	196	125
AI summaries	Yes	No
Export reports as PDF	Yes	No
Quick search	Yes	No
Advanced filtering and booleans	Yes	No
Video recognition	Yes	Yes
Image recognition	Yes	Yes

Scheduling and publishing
Publishing platforms
Recommended time to publish based on goal	Yes	No
Integrated Canva templates	Yes	No
AI hashtag generator	Yes	No
AI post ideas generator	Yes	No
Automatic AI captions based on trends	Yes	No
Boost posts	Yes	No
Create posts for multiple networks at once	Yes	Yes
Calendar view	Yes (view by list, week, and month)	Yes (view by week and month)
Custom workflows	Yes	Yes

Analytics and reporting
Analytics platforms
Export	PDF, CSV, XLS, PPTX	PDF, CSV, XLS
Paid reporting	Yes	Facebook and Instagram only
Competitive benchmarking	Yes	Yes
Social ROI analysis	Yes	No
Link shortener	Yes	With integration

Employee advocacy
Employee advocacy	Yes	No

Messaging and customer service
One inbox for public comments and private messages	Yes	Yes
Auto-responder	Yes	No
Agent availability	Yes	No
Chatbot support	Yes	No
Message spike alerts	Yes	No
Message prioritization	Yes	No
Business hours	Yes	No
Saved and suggested replies	Yes	Yes
Influencer management	Yes	Yes
Inbox automations	Yes	Yes

Compliance
Safeguards to prevent accidental publishing	Yes	No
FedRAMP authorized	Yes	No
Option to add publishing security with Proofpoint	Yes	No
Multi-factor authentication	Yes	Yes
Single sign-on	Yes	Yes

Last updated Aug. 29, 2024

Why Hootsuite beats Meltwater

If you’re in the market for a Meltwater alternative that goes deeper on social listening and helps you kick up your social strategy, there’s no better tool than Hootsuite.

Hootsuite and Talkwalker's AI chatbot functionality

The best AI for social listening and content creation

Meltwater uses Microsoft’s AI, forcing users to use Teams. Hootsuite’s built-in AI comes ready to use — no additional tech stack or onboarding required. With Blue Silk™ AI, you get simplified AI summaries plus predictive forecasting, peak detection, and smart alerts powered by AI. Hootsuite also comes with an AI writing assistant to help with your captions, hashtags, and comments.

Deeper and more accurate social listening

Get the broadest social listening data coverage on the market — 150 million websites, 30 social media channels, and 187 languages. AI-powered data insights and spam filtering ensure incomparable accuracy. Meanwhile, Meltwater only tracks 15 social media networks, and customers often complain of unclean data and incomplete coverage.

Hootsuite and Talkwalker social listening reports

Smarter consumer research and more custom reports

For a snapshot into how your customers really feel, Hootsuite Listening (powered by Talkwalker) uses AI-powered sentiment analysis to automatically detect the big-picture trends that will impact your brand. Plus, no other tool offers more customization for social listening reports and alerts.

Your all-in-one social media performance engine

From the Hootsuite dashboard, you can post, schedule, track, and analyze social media content across more platforms than Meltwater. Our users love being able to quickly create standout content thanks to built-in Canva templates and the only AI writing tool designed for social media managers by social media managers.

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Hootsuite's ability to post to all the channels we need is far above what Meltwater offered. Hootsuite also goes above and beyond in the category of analytics. Hootsuite's custom report is far more detailed and easily digestible than Meltwater's.

Mark Jennings IV

Social Media Specialist

Person with dark lack hair and short beard on laptop with social listening graphs

Ready to find out what your customers really think?

Let us show you how you can put Hootsuite Listening to work for your brand today. No risk, no pressure.

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