7 best Postiz alternatives in 2026 (hosted, self-hosted, and cheaper options)

Troy Underwood
Troy Underwood

Postiz deserves its popularity. It's open source (AGPL-3.0), you can self-host the whole product for free, it covers 30+ channels including niche ones like Discord, Slack, Mastodon, and Telegram, and it ships an API and webhooks on every plan. If you're a developer who enjoys running your own stack, it's one of the best options out there.

So why do people search for alternatives? In the conversations I've had, it's almost always one of these:

  • The cloud pricing floor. Self-hosted Postiz is free, but the hosted version starts at $29/mo for 5 channels — and the Standard plan doesn't include team members or AI image generation.
  • The ops work. Self-hosting means Docker, platform API keys for every network, upgrades, and a server to keep patched. That's a real job, and platform APIs break often enough that it's not a set-and-forget one.
  • Metered AI. AI videos are capped per plan (3 on Standard, up to 60 on the $99 Ultimate tier), which gets tight if short-form video is your main format.

Full disclosure up front: I build Schedulin, and it's first on this list. I've tried to be as fair as I'd want a competitor to be about us — every tool here is a legitimately good pick for somebody, and I say who.

Quick picks

| If you want... | Pick | |---|---| | Hosted scheduling without the $29 floor, AI video included | Schedulin ($5/mo) | | To stay self-hosted, just somewhere else | Mixpost (one-time license) | | A free tier from a household name | Buffer (free for 3 channels) | | Per-account pricing that scales down | Publer (from $5.30/account/mo) | | A minimal indie cross-poster | Post Bridge ($29/mo, free tier) | | Evergreen content recycling | SocialBee ($29/mo) | | An enterprise suite with inbox + listening | Hootsuite ($99/mo) |

1. Schedulin — hosted scheduling from $5/mo, AI video included

Best for: creators and small teams who want Postiz-style capability — scheduling, API, AI — without running a server or paying $29/mo to avoid it.

Schedulin is the bet that nobody should have to run Docker to schedule a post. It's hosted only, and the pricing starts where Postiz cloud doesn't go:

  • Starter — $5/mo for 3 accounts
  • Creator — $10/mo for 12 accounts and 3 team seats
  • Pro — $20/mo for unlimited accounts and 10 seats

Where Postiz meters AI videos per plan, Schedulin includes a faceless AI video generator and long-form-to-Shorts clipping on paid plans. And if the API is what drew you to Postiz in the first place, Schedulin ships a REST API plus a hosted MCP server — so AI agents and scripts can schedule posts without you maintaining any infrastructure.

The honest trade-off: Schedulin is not open source, and it covers the mainstream networks — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky, Reddit — not Postiz's 30+ channel long tail. If you need Discord, Slack, or Telegram publishing, stay with Postiz.

I wrote a full side-by-side here: Schedulin vs Postiz. There's a 7-day trial, no card required.

2. Mixpost — stay self-hosted, pay once

Best for: people who like self-hosting Postiz but want a different codebase — or a one-time price instead of a subscription.

Mixpost is the other serious open-source scheduler. Like Postiz, you run it on your own server with full data ownership and no per-seat fees. The differences are philosophical: Mixpost is Laravel-based, more conventional, and by many accounts a bit more stable for straightforward scheduling, while Postiz pushes harder on the AI-first, agentic direction. Mixpost's free edition covers the basics, and the Pro edition is sold as a one-time license rather than a monthly subscription — which, over a couple of years, is a very different total cost than any cloud plan.

If your complaint about Postiz is anything other than the software itself, Mixpost won't fix it — you're still your own ops team.

3. Buffer — the mainstream default with a real free tier

Best for: anyone who wants a household name and only has a couple of channels.

Buffer's free plan covers 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel — genuinely enough for light posting, and more than Postiz cloud gives you for free (a 7-day trial). Paid starts at $6/channel/month, which is cheap at 2 channels and adds up fast at 10: five channels on Buffer Essentials costs more than Postiz Standard. No self-hosting option, no meaningful API story compared to Postiz, but the polish and reliability are what you'd expect from the oldest name in the category.

Comparison: Schedulin vs Buffer.

4. Publer — per-account pricing that scales down

Best for: small accounts that want hosted scheduling priced by what they actually use.

Publer has a free tier and paid plans from $5.30/account/month. For 2–3 accounts it's one of the cheapest hosted options anywhere, and it's feature-dense: bulk scheduling, recycling, watermarking, AI assist. The catch is the same as Buffer's — per-account pricing inverts once you're managing many profiles, where flat-tier tools win.

Comparison: Schedulin vs Publer.

5. Post Bridge — the minimal indie cross-poster

Best for: people who want the opposite of an AI-first suite: write once, post everywhere, nothing else.

Post Bridge is built by an indie developer and deliberately minimal — no AI layer at all, just cross-posting across the modern platform set (TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Shorts included). The free tier allows a handful of posts per month; paid is a flat $29/mo for 15 accounts. API access is a $5/mo add-on. If Postiz feels like too much product, this is the honest lightweight alternative — though at $29/mo it matches Postiz cloud's price with a fraction of the features, so you're paying for simplicity, not saving money.

Comparison: Schedulin vs Post Bridge.

6. SocialBee — evergreen recycling and content categories

Best for: marketers whose strategy is a structured content mix recycled over time.

SocialBee's signature is category-based scheduling: you fill buckets (tips, promos, curated links), assign them to calendar slots, and evergreen content re-queues automatically. Nothing in Postiz — or Schedulin — does this as well. Pricing starts at $29/mo for 5 profiles, so it's not a savings play over Postiz cloud; it's a different workflow entirely.

Comparison: Schedulin vs SocialBee.

7. Hootsuite — the enterprise suite

Best for: teams that need a unified inbox, social listening, and approval workflows more than they need cheap scheduling.

Hootsuite Professional starts at $99/mo for 10 channels — Postiz Ultimate territory — and Team is $249/mo. You're not paying for scheduling; you're paying for the suite around it: inbox triage, listening, compliance, reporting. If those words appear in your job description, none of the tools above replace it. If they don't, you'd be paying 20× Schedulin's entry price for a calendar.

Comparison: Schedulin vs Hootsuite.

How to actually choose

Three questions sort this list quickly:

  1. Will you run a server? Yes and happily → stay with self-hosted Postiz, or try Mixpost. No → cross Postiz self-hosted and Mixpost off the list, and compare hosted pricing honestly: Schedulin from $5/mo, Publer per-account, Buffer free-to-$6/channel, Postiz cloud from $29/mo.
  2. How many channels, and which ones? Discord, Slack, Telegram, Mastodon, Nostr → Postiz covers the long tail best. Mainstream networks only → every tool here covers them, so decide on price and features instead.
  3. Is short-form video your main format? If you're producing faceless video or clipping long-form into Shorts, metered AI credits get expensive. Schedulin includes both on paid plans; most tools here have neither.

FAQ

Is Postiz really free? The software is — it's open source, and self-hosting costs you only server and ops time. The hosted cloud starts at $29/mo for 5 channels.

What's the cheapest hosted Postiz alternative? Buffer and Publer have free tiers for very light use. For unrestricted scheduling, Schedulin's $5/mo Starter is the lowest paid entry point on this list, and the $10/mo Creator plan (12 accounts, 3 seats) undercuts Postiz cloud's Standard plan while including team seats.

Does anything else have an API like Postiz? Schedulin ships a REST API, signed webhooks, and a hosted MCP server on paid plans — no add-on fee, no infrastructure. Post Bridge sells API access as a $5/mo add-on. Buffer and Publer are weaker here.

If Schedulin sounds like the right trade for you, the full Postiz comparison has the feature-by-feature table, and the 7-day trial doesn't ask for a card.