Best Free & Open Source Alternatives to Buffer

Postiz is an open-source, agentic social media scheduling platform built for creators, businesses, and agencies who manage multiple accounts across networks. You — or an AI agent such as Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, or OpenClaw — plan, generate, and schedule posts to 30+ networks including X, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest, Reddit, Mastodon, and Telegram, all from a single visual calendar. It replaces closed tools like Buffer or Hootsuite and is self-hostable via Docker under the AGPL-3.0 license.

Postiz is designed to be driven by AI agents: a hosted MCP server with OAuth sign-in, a Postiz CLI and installable skill (npx skills add gitroomhq/postiz-agent), and official connectors for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and Grok let agents draft posts, generate images and short videos, and schedule content while a human reviews everything in the calendar. A built-in AI agent can also draft copy, generate images, produce short clips, and turn long videos into TikTok/Reels/Shorts-ready cuts. Beyond AI, Postiz includes evergreen post recycling, RSS auto-posting, auto-engagement actions triggered by milestones, per-channel analytics from official network APIs, customer groups for multi-brand and agency work, unlimited team members on higher plans, and a public REST API with webhooks plus n8n, Make.com, and Zapier integrations.

With 37k+ stars on GitHub and active development toward Postiz Cloud plus the self-hosted edition, Postiz is a credible open-source alternative in a market long dominated by closed SaaS. Cloud plans start at $29/month with a 7-day trial for $0, while self-hosting costs nothing beyond your own server and the developer-app approvals you set up on each network.

Chronex is an open-source social media scheduling tool that lets you compose, schedule, and automatically publish posts across multiple platforms from a single dashboard.

It supports Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, and Telegram, with media uploads handled via Backblaze B2. Post scheduling is powered by Cloudflare Queues, giving it a robust distributed job processing backbone.

Built with Next.js 16, TypeScript, and tRPC on the frontend, and Drizzle ORM with PostgreSQL (via Neon) on the backend — Chronex is a self-hostable alternative to commercial tools like Buffer, Later, and Hootsuite.

TryPost is an open-source social media scheduling platform for creators, startups, and agencies. One visual calendar covers every network, and posts publish natively — through each platform's official API — to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Telegram, and Discord. Workspaces keep each brand or client separate, with owner/admin/member roles, inline approval threads, a reusable media library, and shareable approval links so clients can sign off without an account.

The AI angle is first-class: a writing assistant rephrases, shortens, and expands captions tuned to each network's limits, while a built-in MCP server and REST API let Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, or your own scripts plan, draft, schedule, and pull analytics for you. Automations run server-side with schedules, RSS feeds, and webhooks as triggers, media can come from your device, Unsplash, Google Drive, Google Photos, or Canva, and the interface is available in 17 languages. Native analytics track reach, engagement, and follower growth per account in one chart.

Licensed AGPL-3.0 and fully self-hostable, TryPost places no limits on posts, accounts, or workspaces — your drafts, media, and metrics stay on your own infrastructure. If you'd rather not run servers, a managed cloud is available at $12 per workspace with unlimited team members and every feature on every plan.

OpenPost is an open-source social media management app that combines post creation, design, video editing, and scheduling in a single workspace. Connect accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Lemmy, PieFed, Discord, Pinterest, and Telegram, then compose posts and threads with per-platform text and media previews before publishing.

Scheduling works through a calendar and queues: pick a publishing time or drop posts into the next free slot, stagger them across accounts, and get reminders when a queue runs low. A built-in inbox reads and replies to supported comments and direct messages, while analytics compare post results and track audience changes. Workflows turn GitHub releases, RSS feeds, and scheduled prompts into drafts on a visual canvas, and an API, TypeScript SDK, CLI, MCP server, and n8n integration cover scripted publishing.

Compared to Buffer, it covers the same scheduling and publishing loop without per-post limits or per-seat fees. Compared to Canva, the layered image editor handles thumbnails and multi-page carousels with templates and custom fonts; compared to CapCut, the multitrack video editor trims clips, adds captions and transitions, and cuts footage by selecting words in its transcript. The screen-and-camera recorder feeds the same timeline. Self-host it with Docker Compose (default setup is a single container with SQLite and local media storage) or use OpenPost Hosted.