Accessibility and flexibility in our professional and personal lives have become more crucial than ever, pushing remote desktop solutions to the forefront of technological needs. AnyDesk, a relatively new player in this field, offers a unique combination of performance and accessibility that makes it an intriguing option for many users. 

In this post, we'll explore the features that make AnyDesk stand out, assess its advantages and disadvantages, determine its ideal user base, and discuss the considerations to keep in mind when choosing a remote desktop application.

AnyDesk is a comprehensive remote desktop software that permits users to access and interact with their computers from any location with an internet connection. Boasting a lightweight design and impressive speed, AnyDesk is intended for both individual users and businesses that require efficient remote access solutions.

AnyDesk review: plans and pricing

There’s a free plan from AnyDesk that lets you provide remote support for an unlimited number of computers, although this is purely for personal use. In that respect, AnyDesk is one of the best remote desktop software solutions for casual users who don't need to connect too frequently. 

Meanwhile, for anyone wanting unattended access there’s the Essentials package, which costs $9.90 per month, although this is limited to one user being allowed to manage one remote device. 

A more substantial option if you're running a business and need a beefier array of connectivity is the Performance plan. This currently costs $19.90 per user, per month. For that, you get three remotely-managed devices per user. The good thing with this one is that users aren't restricted to only accessing the devices they add but can actually access any of the devices on a license. 

If this isn't quite substantial enough, there’s an Enterprise plan, which AnyDesk quotes for on an as-needed basis. While all plans are paid for annually, there are also 14-day trial options for the Essentials and Performance packages.

AnyDesk review: Features and utilities

AnyDesk has been around since 2015 and had a revamp during 2021, with version 7 being the current edition. This latest iteration features a much more streamlined user experience, with a wonderfully sensible desktop layout that boasts session tools that are tucked away in a toolbar, rather than being individually laid out in the workspace. 

The software has always been of use to individual users, as well as IT teams who can use to to offer remote technical support. The software works by offering access to Windows and Mac computers, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices. There’s a built-in file manager for easy transfer of content between host ad remote machines, although there is no provision for the drag-and-drop processing of files. 

Organizational duties are covered by an address book system to track all computers that are being accessed remotely. There are also plenty of tools for easy collaboration, with a text chat box, for example, that can assist with remote support duties. There’s also a virtual whiteboard and the ability to invite another users onto your network, which is similarly handy for support scenarios.

AnyDesk: Setup

Much like any other remote desktop access package, AnyDesk isn’t particularly difficult to setup. You’ll need to install the software on your computer and during this AnyDesk displays your unique connection address. 

Connecting to a remote support session using your computer as the host machine will necessitate this unique address being given to a remote user. This can also be done using an email invite. 

Usefully, it’s possible to select a list of permission presets, which controls how much a user can do once they’re on your shared machine.

AnyDesk: Interface and performance

You can use AnyDesk to access and manage remote connections on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices too, in both an attended and unattended capacity. The good news is that, in order to do this, the AnyDesk interface is one of the best there is in terms of plain and simple usability. 

There are plenty of tools that help to speed up your workflow, with the address book being integrated into the address entry bar. This makes it a doddle when you want to connect to machines that are regular connection points. Another bonus is the way AnyDesk can automatically detect other enabled devices in your local network. That really cuts down on the amount of manual intervention needed for business users. 

Stability-wise, we have found AnyDesk to be a very able performer. Along with the easy to use interface, making use of the software is a quick and simple exercise, which is always a plus if you’re a time-poor worker or business owner.

AnyDesk: Security

You’ll find that AnyDesk comes with end-to-end encryption, which covers all of your remote sessions. Having this means that it can help to prevent unauthorized access to your network. 

At the same time, there is also support for two-factor authentication, which adds another level of security with the added option for creating a whitelist, so that only specific devices can access your computer. 

On top of that, AnyDesk lets you set a limit as to what control features are available to any remote users.

AnyDesk: Support

AnyDesk comes with a solid level of support services, although presently this only seems to extend to contact via email, rather than phone. Support includes plenty of online resources, which can be accessed via the website. 

There is also provision for submitting a ticket should you need to contact AnyDesk about a specific issue or query. AnyDesk also seems to have a pretty good social media setup too, which is always good for lots of general information, tips, tricks and workarounds.

AnyDesk: Pros and cons

There are several reasons to like AnyDesk, but there are also a few things you should be aware of.  

Pros of AnyDesk:

- Performance: AnyDesk is known for its high-speed performance, ensuring quick and responsive remote access even on slower internet connections.

Lightweight Software: The program is compact and provides quick downloads and installations, which is particularly beneficial for systems with limited resources.

- User Interface: AnyDesk offers an intuitive and uncluttered interface, making it easy for new users to navigate.

- Compatibility: It supports multiple platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, which enhances its versatility.

- Free Version: AnyDesk offers a free version for personal use, which is beneficial for individual users or those who want to test the software before committing financially. 

Cons of AnyDesk:

- Security Concerns: While AnyDesk has good security features, it has been the target of scam operations where users are tricked into granting access to their PCs. Users need to be vigilant.

- Limited Features in Free Version: While the free version is valid, it is limited in features, particularly concerning unattended access, which is essential for many business users.

- Customer Support: Customer service and support can be less comprehensive than those of larger market competitors.

Who should use AnyDesk

AnyDesk is ideally suited for a number of different types of people and groups. 

1. IT Support and Help Desk Teams

For IT professionals, the ability to quickly respond to support tickets and manage multiple systems remotely is crucial. AnyDesk enables **remote troubleshooting** without the need for physical presence, making it an efficient tool for:

*   Resolving issues in real-time

*   Providing back-end support to corporate environments

*   Managing servers remotely

2. Remote Workers and Freelancers

The rise of remote work has necessitated tools that allow employees and freelancers to access workstations from anywhere in the world. AnyDesk facilitates a seamless connection to office computers, maintaining **productivity** with:

*   High-speed connections that minimize latency

*   Secure access controls ensuring data integrity and security

*   Compatibility across multiple operating systems for diverse tech stacks

3. Educators and Online Tutors

With education increasingly moving online, teachers and tutors need effective ways to interact with students' devices for tutorials and technical assistance. AnyDesk assists by:

*   Allowing educators to view and manage student screens during lessons

*   Supporting educational software troubleshooting from a distance

*   Offering an intuitive platform that students can easily navigate

4. Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

SME owners often need to manage multiple aspects of business from different locations. AnyDesk offers a **cost-effective and reliable** solution for:

*   Remote management of business operations

*   Accessing files and software from any location

*   Facilitating remote collaboration and meetings

5. Tech Enthusiasts and Personal Users

Individuals who manage multiple devices or need access to their home networks while traveling can benefit from AnyDesk’s:

*   Unattended access feature, for connecting seamlessly without manual acceptance

*   High level of customization and settings to cater to different needs and preferences

6. Developers and Engineers

Software developers and engineers may need to deploy updates, manage version control, or access development servers from remote locations. AnyDesk supports these activities with:

*   Robust file transfer capabilities

*   Ability to connect to multiple screens or servers concurrently for comprehensive control

AnyDesk: The competition

While AnyDesk is certainly more than adequate for everyday use, if you’re a business owner with the need to access multiple machines you’re going to need a slightly more substantial package. 

TeamViewer is perhaps one of the best options in that respect, despite its higher cost factor. Lookout for the powerful option of being able to manage up to 200 devices using one IT worker as a prime example. Add on the likes of mass deployment and command line control options and you've got a beefy package that is more potent than AnyDesk. 

Conversely, Zoho Assist makes a great option if you're looking for better value and also remote support capability. It is great value for money and will meet the needs of many medium-to-larger companies. 

Sandwiched inbetween are numerous other options when it comes to competitor products in the best remote desktop software space.

AnyDesk: Final verdict

We are enthusiastic supporters of AnyDesk, especially for individuals who only occasionally need remote desktop access and don't require advanced features. However, if you run a more significant business and need more robust tools, you may find shortcomings in AnyDesk compared to something like TeamViewer. Nonetheless, AnyDesk is user-friendly and reasonably priced, especially if you only need the accessible version.

AnyDesk offers an impressive array of features that accommodate many users needing fast and dependable remote desktop access. Its focus on performance and multiple platform support makes it a compelling option. However, potential users should consider the limitations of the free version, the security risks associated with remote desktop tools, and the level of customer support. When choosing remote desktop software, it's essential to evaluate your specific needs, such as unattended access, frequency of use, and the significance of customer support, to ensure a smooth and productive remote access experience.

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What to look for when choosing a remote desktop solution

Selecting an appropriate remote desktop solution is essential for businesses and individuals seeking efficient, secure, and convenient access to their desktops from any location. Consider several critical factors to ensure the solution meets your needs when evaluating options.

Security is paramount. As remote access can be a potential entry point for cyberattacks, look for a solution that offers robust authentication methods, such as two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption for data in transit. This helps protect sensitive information from unauthorized access.

Ease of Use also plays a significant role. The ideal remote desktop software should offer a straightforward, intuitive user interface, making it easy for users of all technical levels to connect and navigate their remote systems without extensive training. Compatibility with various operating systems and devices enhances accessibility, allowing users to connect seamlessly from any computer or mobile device.

Performance directly impacts productivity; thus, selecting software that offers high-speed connections with minimal latency is critical, especially for tasks requiring real-time responsiveness. Look for solutions that optimize the remote access experience, even on slower internet connections, by adjusting the display settings and reducing bandwidth usage.

Features and FuncFunctionality are also essential to consider. Depending on your specific needs, you might require advanced features such as remote printing, file transfer, multi-monitor support, and session recording. Assessing the available features against your needs will help ensure the solution efficiently supports your workflow.

Cost is another consideration. Many remote desktop solutions offer a range of pricing plans, from free versions with basic funcFunctionalitysubscription-based models with advanced features and support. Evaluate the cost against the benefits and features provided to determine the most cost-effective solution for your requirements.

Customer Support and Reliability are crucial, especially for business users relying on remote access for critical operations. Look for providers with a reputation for reliability and customer support, offering assistance through various channels such as live chat, email, or phone support.

Lastly, consider the solution's scalability. As your business grows, your remote desktop needs may evolve. Opt for a solution that can scale up quickly, adding more users or integrating with other tools and services without significant overhauls.

In summary, finding the right remote desktop solution involves carefully assessing security, ease of use, performance, features, cost, customer support, and scalability. By prioritizing these factors, you can select a solution that meets your current needs and supports future growth and change.

Task management apps enhance productivity in both personal and professional endeavors. They make it easier to organize and prioritize your everyday duties. I’ve reviewed many task management tools to help readers make the best choice, and today’s highlight is Habitica.

Habitica is a task management app with a twist. It’s a gamified tool that treats your tasks like game quests to be completed. Users receive in-game rewards for completing quests and virtual punishments for missing them. I tested this app extensively to help you decide if it’s an ideal choice. Read on to learn what this gamified task management app offers.

Habitica: Plans and pricing 

Habitica offers a straightforward pricing system, with distinct plans for personal and collaborative use.

I like that there’s a free version that helps you get familiar with the app. However, it significantly limits the volume of tasks you can manage.

To unlock advanced features, you can subscribe to the individual premium plan for $5 per month, $15 for three months, $30 for six months, or $48 for a year. Notably, the annual plan includes a 20% discount on the month-to-month pricing.

There’s also a group plan suited for teams, friends, or families needing a shared task management app. The cost is $9 per month for the first account, with an additional $3 per month for each group member. Suppose you want a workspace for five office colleagues; it will cost $9 for the admin and $3 each for the remaining four accounts, totaling $21 per month.

I consider Habitica’s pricing fair, given the features it provides. It offers an interactive app that makes task management a gamified, fun experience.

Habitica: Features 

As mentioned, Habitica offers a unique, gamified twist to task management apps. After registration, users are prompted to choose a unique username and avatar. Then, you can begin adding tasks to your Habitica dashboard.

Habitica gamifies tasks using the “carrot and stick” approach. You can set virtual rewards for completing tasks, such as a sword, a helmet, or a health potion. Completing the task earns you this reward, and incompletion means losing out on this valuable reward.

But, what’s the use of virtual rewards that are not worth anything in reality? The answer is a lot, at least in the game. You can compete against colleagues in a leaderboard, jockeying for who can amass more points than the other.

Likewise, you can use rewards to purchase customizations for your dashboard (e.g., custom background images and avatar skins) and complete in-game quests. The appeal of Habitica is earning points by completing tasks in a gamified, competitive environment. It leverages the gaming thrill to help users stay alert about their real-world tasks.

You can set three main types of tasks on Habitica: dailies, to-dos, and habits. Dailies are tasks that are incorporated into your daily routine, so Habitica will send reminders to keep you aware of them.

To-dos are the tasks you’ll do once and claim your virtual reward. As expected, Habitica will send timely reminders as requested. Over time, incomplete to-dos turn redder and will earn more rewards upon completion; this system encourages you to handle your pending tasks.

Habits are exactly like real-life habits; you can create an unlimited number of them on this app. They can be Good, denoted by a "+" sign, or Bad, denoted by a "-" sign. Good ones bring virtual rewards, while Bad ones cause a loss of in-game health. The idea is to use this system as motivation to cultivate good habits and abandon bad ones.

Using Habitica in group settings feels even more fun. It’s like playing a video game, but with players competing against themselves with real-world quests.

Group members can share the same task board, monitoring each other's tasks and ensuring everyone fulfills their end. As an admin, you can assign tasks to specific group members and monitor their progress status. Completing tasks earns team members virtual rewards, encouraging people to meet deadlines.

The gamified experience makes Habitica a double-edged sword. While it may seem enjoyable to some, many others may not find it pleasant, especially in corporate settings. Many users prefer a boring corporate app over a gamified one that adds more complexity.

If adopting Habitica for personal use, you can easily decide whether you like the gamified experience. However, if adopting it for a workplace, it’s advisable to ask employees if they want the gamified experience. You can use the free plan to give them a feel of the app. If most employees object, Habitica might not be the best fit for your workplace.

Habitica: Interface and in use 

Habitica’s gamification enhances its sleek, intuitive interface. The app offers an interactive experience with quick and easy navigation. You can access it from a web interface or download the mobile app on iOS or Android. There’s no official desktop app, which is a competitive disadvantage.

Habitica: Customer support 

Habitica offers reasonable customer support. It has an official Help Center with detailed manuals, FAQs, and guides. Creatively, this Help Center is hosted on Fandom, a popular wiki platform for games. Hosting a Help Center on Fandom enhances the gamified experience, and this Help Center is notably easy to navigate.

You can also send email inquiries to Habitica’s support team and get answers within 48 hours (the support system wasn’t as fast as I expected). Likewise, you can ask questions on Habitica’s official help forum and get answers from other users.

Habitica: The competition 

Remember The Milk is the main competitor I’d like to highlight. It doesn’t offer the gamified experience of Habitica, but it does provide an interactive interface that’s enjoyable to navigate. It’s competitively priced at $50 annually and offers similar task management features.

I consider Remember The Milk the go-to alternative for people who don’t want the gamified experience of Habitica but need an intuitive tool with similar features.

Habitica: Final verdict 

Habitica is ideal for individuals who want to combine task management with a gamified experience. It motivates users to complete tasks and earn rewards, setting it apart from competitors. It’s not designed for everyone, but Habitica is excellent for its target audience.

We've listed the best calendar apps.

Task management apps enhance productivity in both personal and professional endeavors. They make it easier to organize and prioritize your everyday duties. I’ve reviewed many task management tools to help readers make the best choice, and today’s highlight is Habitica.

Habitica is a task management app with a twist. It’s a gamified tool that treats your tasks like game quests to be completed. Users receive in-game rewards for completing quests and virtual punishments for missing them. I tested this app extensively to help you decide if it’s an ideal choice. Read on to learn what this gamified task management app offers.

Habitica: Plans and pricing 

Habitica offers a straightforward pricing system, with distinct plans for personal and collaborative use.

I like that there’s a free version that helps you get familiar with the app. However, it significantly limits the volume of tasks you can manage.

To unlock advanced features, you can subscribe to the individual premium plan for $5 per month, $15 for three months, $30 for six months, or $48 for a year. Notably, the annual plan includes a 20% discount on the month-to-month pricing.

There’s also a group plan suited for teams, friends, or families needing a shared task management app. The cost is $9 per month for the first account, with an additional $3 per month for each group member. Suppose you want a workspace for five office colleagues; it will cost $9 for the admin and $3 each for the remaining four accounts, totaling $21 per month.

I consider Habitica’s pricing fair, given the features it provides. It offers an interactive app that makes task management a gamified, fun experience.

Habitica: Features 

As mentioned, Habitica offers a unique, gamified twist to task management apps. After registration, users are prompted to choose a unique username and avatar. Then, you can begin adding tasks to your Habitica dashboard.

Habitica gamifies tasks using the “carrot and stick” approach. You can set virtual rewards for completing tasks, such as a sword, a helmet, or a health potion. Completing the task earns you this reward, and incompletion means losing out on this valuable reward.

But, what’s the use of virtual rewards that are not worth anything in reality? The answer is a lot, at least in the game. You can compete against colleagues in a leaderboard, jockeying for who can amass more points than the other.

Likewise, you can use rewards to purchase customizations for your dashboard (e.g., custom background images and avatar skins) and complete in-game quests. The appeal of Habitica is earning points by completing tasks in a gamified, competitive environment. It leverages the gaming thrill to help users stay alert about their real-world tasks.

You can set three main types of tasks on Habitica: dailies, to-dos, and habits. Dailies are tasks that are incorporated into your daily routine, so Habitica will send reminders to keep you aware of them.

To-dos are the tasks you’ll do once and claim your virtual reward. As expected, Habitica will send timely reminders as requested. Over time, incomplete to-dos turn redder and will earn more rewards upon completion; this system encourages you to handle your pending tasks.

Habits are exactly like real-life habits; you can create an unlimited number of them on this app. They can be Good, denoted by a "+" sign, or Bad, denoted by a "-" sign. Good ones bring virtual rewards, while Bad ones cause a loss of in-game health. The idea is to use this system as motivation to cultivate good habits and abandon bad ones.

Using Habitica in group settings feels even more fun. It’s like playing a video game, but with players competing against themselves with real-world quests.

Group members can share the same task board, monitoring each other's tasks and ensuring everyone fulfills their end. As an admin, you can assign tasks to specific group members and monitor their progress status. Completing tasks earns team members virtual rewards, encouraging people to meet deadlines.

The gamified experience makes Habitica a double-edged sword. While it may seem enjoyable to some, many others may not find it pleasant, especially in corporate settings. Many users prefer a boring corporate app over a gamified one that adds more complexity.

If adopting Habitica for personal use, you can easily decide whether you like the gamified experience. However, if adopting it for a workplace, it’s advisable to ask employees if they want the gamified experience. You can use the free plan to give them a feel of the app. If most employees object, Habitica might not be the best fit for your workplace.

Habitica: Interface and in use 

Habitica’s gamification enhances its sleek, intuitive interface. The app offers an interactive experience with quick and easy navigation. You can access it from a web interface or download the mobile app on iOS or Android. There’s no official desktop app, which is a competitive disadvantage.

Habitica: Customer support 

Habitica offers reasonable customer support. It has an official Help Center with detailed manuals, FAQs, and guides. Creatively, this Help Center is hosted on Fandom, a popular wiki platform for games. Hosting a Help Center on Fandom enhances the gamified experience, and this Help Center is notably easy to navigate.

You can also send email inquiries to Habitica’s support team and get answers within 48 hours (the support system wasn’t as fast as I expected). Likewise, you can ask questions on Habitica’s official help forum and get answers from other users.

Habitica: The competition 

Remember The Milk is the main competitor I’d like to highlight. It doesn’t offer the gamified experience of Habitica, but it does provide an interactive interface that’s enjoyable to navigate. It’s competitively priced at $50 annually and offers similar task management features.

I consider Remember The Milk the go-to alternative for people who don’t want the gamified experience of Habitica but need an intuitive tool with similar features.

Habitica: Final verdict 

Habitica is ideal for individuals who want to combine task management with a gamified experience. It motivates users to complete tasks and earn rewards, setting it apart from competitors. It’s not designed for everyone, but Habitica is excellent for its target audience.

We've listed the best calendar apps.

Task management apps are some of the most valuable tools used by individuals and businesses. They enable users to plan, monitor, and complete tasks efficiently. They allow you to break down tasks into smaller components and prioritize specific tasks over others.

TickTick is one of the best to-do list apps. I tested it rigorously to note its features, pros, and cons, as well as other vital factors. Read on to learn what TickTick offers and whether it’s an ideal task management tool for individual and business use. 

TickTick: Plans and pricing 

TickTick is a freemium tool, like many of its rivals. It offers basic features for free and requires subscriptions for advanced features.

The free version allows you to create and receive reminders for tasks. You can organize and prioritize schedules with this free version, but not much else.

The premium version unlocks sophisticated features, including visualizations, custom task filters, templates, and the ability to add tasks from your smartphone's lock screen. It costs $36 annually, or $3 monthly.

At $3 monthly, TickTick is priced competitively. It’s more affordable than many rival tools offering similar features. For unclear reasons, TickTick does not offer an official free trial; however, you can request a refund within 14 days if you are unsatisfied with the premium features.

TickTick: Features 

TickTick offers a wide range of features that enable you to manage your to-do lists effectively. You can quickly add new tasks from your dashboard and set reminders for specific dates. TickTick will send a push notification to your smartphone on the due dates. You can also get notified about tasks via email.

You can set tasks as recurring, e.g., daily or weekly, to receive repeat reminders. You can also set a constant reminder that repeats every minute until you stop it; this feature is helpful for time-sensitive tasks you don’t want to miss.

I liked that TickTick allowed me to set location-based reminders. I could choose to receive a reminder when arriving or leaving a specific location, such as the office or gym.

You can search for an address or use your current location for the reminder; ensure location access is turned on for TickTick in your smartphone settings. It doesn’t have to be an exact location; you can choose a radius around a landmark. This feature keeps you alert about crucial tasks at specific locations, such as an office meeting or presentation.

Another standout feature is TickTick’s calendar view, which lets you monitor all tasks in a calendar format. I liked the interactive and colorful look of TickTick’s calendar much more than on rival apps.

I could sort the calendar into different views – monthly, weekly, multi-weekly, and multi-daily – to get a detailed visualization of my previously added tasks. The calendar sports a white background and unique colors to highlight each task. Many other task management apps offer calendars, but TickTick provides one of the most interactive ones.

Save for calendars, TickTick also lets you view tasks in list, kanban, and timeline formats. In the list format, your tasks are separated into three columns: the first is the category, the second is the main tasks and signed schedules, and the third is the extra details attached to the tasks (notes, pictures, etc.).

The kanban view is my favorite, where tasks are arranged into separate columns based on your chosen criterion, such as date, priority, and team. Kanban boards are helpful when you have numerous tasks and need a simple visual representation. The timeline view is also another intuitive way to visualize your projects.

Collaboration is a main benefit of using TickTick. You can share to-do lists with other users and work together on everyday tasks. You’ll invite colleagues and friends to your group and assign tasks to each other. When you create a shared task, every group member will receive reminders at the due date.

TickTick has a decent library of third-party integrations. I often encounter task management apps with few third-party integrations, but TickTick bucks the trend. It integrates with diverse tools, including Amazon Alexa, which enables you to create tasks via voice commands; Slack, allowing you to receive notifications within their Slack dashboard; and Zapier, which lets you create custom automations.

TickTick: Interface and in use 

TickTick has a user-friendly interface that’s easy to grasp. Features are neatly arranged across the dashboard, making it easy to find what you want. TickTick offers tutorials and examples to help first-time users become familiar with their dashboard. It has one of the best interfaces I’ve encountered when testing task management apps.

TickTick: Customer Support 

You can visit TickTick’s official Help Center for user guides and FAQs to help troubleshoot issues. You can also contact TickTick’s support team via email.

Email support was reliable during my test, but I observed significant third-party complaints about delayed responses. Notably, there’s no live chat or telephone support option.

TickTick: The Competition 

Todoist is the main TickTick competitor I’d like to highlight. It offers similar features and an intuitive interface for users, allowing you to easily create and organize tasks from either the web interface or mobile app. Todoist and TickTick are both sophisticated task management apps, but the latter is the more affordable option.

Google Tasks is another prominent competitor. It’s a free app that lets users create and organize tasks. Google Tasks features a user-friendly interface and is accessible from both web browsers and mobile apps. It shares some common features with TickTick, but overall, TickTick has broader functionalities; for example, Google Tasks does not have kanban and timeline views.

TickTick: Final Verdict 

TickTick is a reliable task management app with broad features, an intuitive interface, and valuable third-party integrations. It offers helpful task management features at a reasonable price, making it one of the best choices for both personal and business use.

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If you're in business and looking for the best social media management tools to boost your fortunes then Sendible is an ideal candidate to consider. This is a complete package that delivers all of the tools for managing social media campaigns, via an easy to use platform. 

It’s got a variety of practical tools for getting the job done, with the ability to schedule and queue your posts, along with managing calendars in order to create controlled campaigns. The overall design and usability is intuitive, there’s a strong emphasis on reporting capabilities and Sendible also comes keenly priced.

• Sign up for a Sendible plan.

You can also choose from a selection of different packages, all of which have been created to help users exploit the power of social media marketing. These range from very basic freelance options, with a more basic range of tools on offer, through to a full-on edition that is aimed at businesses that are expanding their focus on social media.

Plans and Pricing

Sendible has created a range of options on the plans and pricing front, which means that it is well suited to different sizes of business user. Currently, pricing seems to be $US or UK-centric, though there are Sendible website portals for the UK, US and European markets too. Presumably this means they can tailor a product or package to suit your location.

You can choose to pay monthly or yearly, with a 15% saving offered to those who pay for the full twelve months in one go. To illustrate typical package prices we’ll use monthly costs here, which start off with the Creator package. There’s a free trial available and it is subsequently billed at $29 per month. It’s aimed primarily at freelance workers and offers 1 user and 6 social profiles to be exploited.

Next up, there is the Traction package, which also comes with a free trial and is billed monthly at $89. Sendible suggests it is targeted at start-up agencies and brands. Traction allows 4 users and has 24 social profile options. Sendible’s Scale edition is its most popular, with the option for 7 users and 49 social profiles to be activated. It comes with a monthly $199 cost and is aimed at expanding agencies and brands.

Finally, Sendible offers the Expansion edition, which is just that and offers a fully expandable package aimed at large teams and agencies. This costs $399 per month, but there’s a free trial option too and it offers a 15 user and 105 social profile flexibility that is clearly going to be useful for businesses that are on the up.

Basic features

There are several core areas of Sendible, all of which should appeal to a business owner looking to get a strong hold on social media campaigning. The main areas of interest include Publishing, Collaboration and Analytics, with the ability to closely monitor how campaigns are going, via a neat dashboard-style design arrangement.

 Usefully, each of the plans outlined above adds in features and functions that are suited to the particular target market. In theory, this means you’ll only be paying for what you use, rather than have lots of tools that never get called up. The freelancer edition features unlimited scheduling, planning and publishing, monitoring and replying plus reporting and content suggestions. 

Professional features

Move up to the Traction package and you get all those options plus team collaboration, post assignment and approval, user management and a personalised demo to get the ball rolling. Similarly, the Scale edition includes everything in Traction along with automated client reporting, a content and hashtag library, custom approval flows as well as personalised onboarding.

Meanwhile, Expansion features include everything in the Scale plan along with white labelling, the ability to manage client permissions, merge tags and you also get the benefit of a dedicated account manager. This alone can be highly useful in a charged and rapidly expanding social media management department.

Interface and in Use

Sendible can be used to tackle all of your social media management challenges and is therefore compatible with all of the usual suspects. It can integrate with the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and basically everyone else. To do that effectively Sendible has created a great little user interface, which is both easy to use and powerful too.

Central to the effective nature of Sendible is its dashboard area. This is home to all of the core tools you use during daily activities. It is also crucial for setting up and managing campaigns, with menu options for scheduling and queuing posts. You can also dip into published items, check how the activity levels are going and, subsequently, monitor the outcome. It’s all very straightforward, even in the beefier package editions.

Support

Not everyone is ready or able to hit the ground running when they embark on a social media marketing journey. In that respect, we like the way Sendible has packed in plenty to help both the newbie or seasoned pro, as well as lone freelancers, while also delivering plenty of support for those higher up the ladder. Indeed, there are multiple information options to be found on the Sendible support site.

We also like the ease with which it’s possible to dip in and see how fellow users have been faring with their Sendible experience. This is often a great way of pinpointing potential problem areas. That’s especially so if you’re working within a collaborative environment, or have new staff who might not be familiar with the way things tick.

As you’d expect, Sendible support staff can also be contacted directly, with the support center delivering plenty of options on that front.

The Competition

Sendible covers an awful lot of bases on the social media management front. There is also something to suit any kind of budget too. However, it's worth remembering to check out other alternatives in the social media arena. Have a look at the likes of Hootsuite, SocialPilot, Buffer, eClincher, Statusbrew, Loomly and Zoho Social, all of which are perfectly decent competitors worthy of investigation.

Final Verdict

Sendible offers a good selection of different package options for those with ambitions to raise their social media profile. For campaign purposes, it’s got all of the tools, especially if you’re an agency or a business with big social aspirations. It’s easy to see why the Sendible Scale package is most popular, as it contains a host of great tools that will appeal to many.

Crucially, there is rock-solid reporting capability, which too many will be key in finding just how much of a return they’ll be getting on their monthly, or annual investment.

• You can signup to Sendible here.

Any business hankering after the best social media management tools should investigate Zoho Social, which offers the ability to co-ordinate all of your social campaigns from one place, lets any type of business to schedule posts, keeps track of the results, and compiles comprehensive reports.

Zoho Social's other benefit is working alongside other products in Zoho's portfolio, meaning a business should be able to exploit its power even more efficiently by integrating with Zoho Workspace, Campaigns, and CRM. 

Being able to work in a one-stop environment will be ideally suite to many companies, especially those who are looking to make workflow activities more efficient. Add on great iOS and Android apps and Zoho is an attractive tool. 

• Sign up for Zoho Social

Of course, there is still competition in the social media management space from the likes of Hootsuite, Buffer, HubSpot, and Circleboom, but for companies that have already bought into the Zoho suite, or are considering doing so, Social is one of the strongest options. 

Let's dive into our review of the Zoho Social social media manager. 

• How we test, review and rate on TechRadar

Zoho Social: Plans and Pricing

Zoho always tends to offer an easy way into using its software and that is no less evident than this social media management package. 

To start, there’s a free 15-day trial, which lets you explore the features and functions without committing to a contract, and then there’s the option to pay either monthly or yearly, so it’s pretty flexible.

Zoho's other great ideal is letting users switch plans at anytime, meaning it’s quick and easy to effectively upgrade if your business has outgrown its existing package, which is kind of the ideal mode for enterprise software. 

Zoho Social offers three plans, with each one having appeal for businesses of different sizes. First off, the Standard edition is cheapest, staring out at $10 per month if billed annually, and offering 10 channels and one team member. 

Next up, the Professional plan comes in at $30 per month, while the trio is rounded out by the Premium edition, which costs $40 per month. Both of these prices are billed annually, and monthly billing may cost more. 

The latter two packages have add-ons that mean individual brands can be added on at $14.50 per month, and team members added at $10 per month on the Professional plan. Premium offers the same thing, but brands costs $19.50 per month per brand, with additional team members costing the same $10 per month.

Zoho Social also comes packaged for agencies too: the Agency edition costs $230 per month when billed annually, and starts off with an allowance of 10 brands/90 channels, five team members, and 24/5 email support. 

The Agency Plus edition costs $330 per month, billed annually, and offers up 20 brands/180 channels, five team members, and the same 24/5 email support, making the tier a real heavyweight option.

• Empty list

Zoho Social: Basic features

Even in its most basic incarnation, Zoho Social comes packed with a practical array of features and functions, and of course there is the 15-day free trial to get your head around what works for your business. 

Standard works for one brand and 10 channels, one team member, and includes compatibility with Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Twitter Profiles, Instagram Business Profiles, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Company Pages, Google My Business listings, and more. 

There’s a neat dashboard interface that helps to monitor posts, carry out multi-channel publishing, schedule your content, and compile a publishing calendar. 

Power tools include a link shortener, activity logging, user tagging, and the production of summary reports. An image editor also proves mighty handy if you don't want to splurge on Adobe Photoshop or similar. 

• Best productivity tool of 2024

Zoho Social: Professional features

The Professional tier ramps things up a bit, offering one brand and 10 channels, and a one team member allowance. Users also get all of the Standard features plus a ream of others, including livestreaming, notifications, repeat posting, a media library, rescheduling of posts, RSS feeds, messages, the ability to pause and resume content, and the muting and blocking of accounts where needed.

• Best project management software of 2024

Zoho Social: Premium features

Zoho has added a Premium edition to its portfolio, which is even better suited to larger businesses. You get all of the regular Professional features alongside a pile of extras, including the ability to export posts, collaborate between three team members, and use a dedicated reporting dashboard. 

In fact, the reporting capabilities of this package are pretty formidable, and there’s the added advantage of being able to use Social in tandem with Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk. It can also handle lead generation, so there is plenty of opportunity to get a decent return on your investment.

Zoho says the Premium option is its most popular and it's easy to see why, there's a good mix of high-end enterprise features without a huge cost. 

• Best CRM software of 2024

Zoho Social: User Interface

Zoho Social has been designed to offer a full suite of tools aimed at improving your social media management fortunes. 

Zoho is certainly a comprehensive solution, no matter which of the three packages you decide to go for, and the core structure of Zoho Social focuses on the structuring of campaigns and the subsequent monitoring of your social activity. 

Collaboration is a priority too, helping team members work together and make sense of analytics and the production of those all-important reports, which can then be fed higher up the chain. 

Setting up and scheduling posts is quick and easy, and there’s the ability to collaborate using a publishing calendar, create content queues, and also curate content as and when it's needed. 

In our testing, we found that Zoho Social has been nicely designed, meaning that it’s simple to monitor all of your social media activity, with a listening dashboard, live stream, and the ability to send direct messages.

The collaborational aspect of Zoho Social is particularly impressive, offering the ability to define workflows, have team discussions, and assign roles and permissions proving to be the most practical aspects. The same goes for the useability of the analytical tools: lookout for comprehensive stats, the ability to produce custom reports, and also the ability to receive scheduled reports for your regular meetings.

Capping things off, the iOS and Android apps are a pleasure to use, making on-the-go social media tasks that much easier. 

• Best online collaboration tool of 2024

Zoho Social: Support

All Zoho Social packages come with the same 24/5 email support, which should prove substantial enough for most needs. The Zoho website also comes with a very decent level of help files, tutorials, and supporting information designed to answer many common queries.

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Zoho Social: The competition

The social media management marketplace is a hive of activity, with plenty of options aimed at helping businesses get more from their campaigns, which is ultimately good news for your search. 

Alongside Zoho Social you can take your pick from key players, including Buffer, Sendible, Loomly, Hootsuite, and Circleboom, all of which are very decent competitors worthy of consideration.

It's worth checking out our guide to the best social media management tools to quickly see the pros and cons of each offering. 

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Zoho Social: Final verdict

Zoho Social has managed to pack in a great deal of features and functions into each one of these three social media management packages, which will make the suite instantly attractive to businesses of all shapes and sizes, although you’ll really want to head in the direction of the Premium editions to get the best set of tools. 

That’s especially so if you’re looking for detailed analytics and the ability to produce power-packed reports. Indeed, the Agency editions take that a step further and, while there is added cost involved, there’s no doubting the additional muscle these premium-priced products come with.

If you're already a Zoho customer across its CRM, Desk, Mail, Books, and Assist offerings, then tacking on Social is the best thing to do. 

• Sign up to Zoho Social

A big part of being successful in social media is by getting the best social media management tools, and Hubspot is a good choice for those looking to combine several business tasks in one package. 

By signing up for the Marketing Hub area of the HubSpot suite, you’ll have quick and easy integration with other areas, such as HubSpot CRM features, as well as customer service, a website builder, help desk tools, and more. 

While rival social media tools like Hootsuite, Circleboom, and Buffer offer complete packages, the fact that HubSpot offers so many different products could give them an edge, especially as the overall cost can decline when purchasing from its suite. 

• Sign up for a HubSpot plan

HubSpot markets its social media tools as, first and foremost, aiming to save you time by automating onerous parts of the process. Everything is collected together in one helpful dashboard, meaning your business will never miss a notification – good or bad – again, or that's the idea. 

One thing we would note at the start is that, unlike some of its rivals, HubSpot is focused more on the enterprise market, rather than smaller outfits. Luckily, there are other great options for SMBs, and HubSpot does offer an affordable Starter account, but its larger business plans can be pricey.

Let's dive into our HubSpot social media manager review.

• How we test, review and rate on TechRadar

HubSpot: Plans and Pricing

HubSpot has a plan to suit any kind of requirement and the company actually has many useful free tools available, too. However, to get the best from HubSpot, chances are that you’ll want to invest in one of three core plans, which includes Starter, Professional, and Enterprise options.

All of the social media features come as part of a Marketing Hub plan, while the CRM, Services, CMS, Operations, and Commerce suites of tools can be found elsewhere. HutSpot does do deals for companies signing up for a few, or all, of these services, and so if your business is in the market, it's worth a look.

HubSpot also offers a range of free tools, mostly focused around CRM. 

With that out of the way, the social media plans are nicely tailored price-wise to suit all sort of budgets. HubSpot's other smart idea about the pricing page is that you can toggle the amount of marketing contacts you wish to add to your package and the prices adjust dynamically. 

We’ll stick with the defaults for the purpose of simplicity here, but it's worth getting specific with the sliders on HubSpot's website to calculate the true cost.

Starter begins at $45 per month, or $540 per year, with marketing increments of 1,000 for an additional $45 per month. 

Next up, there’s the Professional plan, which starts at $800 per month, or $9,600 per year, and includes 2,000 marketing contacts. Additional increments of 5,000 cost around $224 per month. 

Rounding out the selection is the Enterprise edition, priced from $3,200 per month, or $38,400 per year, and offer with 10,000 marketing contacts, while additional increments cost $100 per month for 10,000.

• Best small business app of 2024

HubSpot: Basic features

As we mentioned above, HutSpot classifies its social media tools as being part of its Market Hub, which gives users access to an extensive range of tools, all designed to improve your lot when it comes to social media marketing. 

A real bonus begins with several free features that come as part of the package, including email marketing and forms, contact management capabilities, and handy landing pages aimed at smoothing the task of boosting social media followers.

On top of that, there are live chat functions, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn ad functionality, which can be used very easily, alongside detailed traffic and conversion analytics that help to make sense your brand's online presence 

However, in order to really get the best from HubSpot, your business would most likely benefit from the Premium tools found in the paid editions.

Signing up for a full version of Hubspot, showcased via a demo first, means your business will have access to a variety of power tools. The thinking here is that it can help form a stronger overall CRM platform for your business, helping you to exploit the power big social media platforms while also integrating with other facets of HubSpot in order to get better returns.

We'll now look at what Starter, Professional, and Enterprise offers.  

HubSpot: Starter features

Alongside the free tools, choosing the Starter package adds the ability to remove HubSpot branding from forms, email marketing, landing pages, and also the live chat feature. While this might seem simple, it's powerful for projecting your brand online.

Starter users get up to 10 reporting dashboards, a product library of up to one million products, 50 active lists for segmentation, ad retargeting, basic SEO recommendations, up to 10 automated form actions, and much more. 

As if that wasn't enough, Starter also offers US-only payments alongside email and in-app chat. 

HubSpot: Professional features

Moving on up to the Professional package finds all of the Starter features plus a whole lot more, like omni-channel marketing automation, ABM tools and automation, dynamic personalization, multi-language content, and social media tools, plus video hosting and management alongside contact and company scoring.

Power users will appreciate the likes of collaboration tools, campaign management functionality, and the ability to work in teams. Businesses also stand to benefit from the likes of custom reporting, and there’s advanced support from HutSpot at the end of a phone line for anyone who needs help. Integration with Salesforce is another attractive feature with this plan.

HubSpot: Enterprise features

While you may find the pricing structure for the Enterprise edition a little eye-watering, it does come with all of the muscle you’d expect from a premium package. 

Enterprise users will enjoy all of the features of the Professional bundle, but in addition there are more options for managing teams and brands. Single sign-on, partitioning, hierarchical teams, permission sets, field-level permissions, and an email send frequency cap adds more heft. 

HubSpot also offers the capacity for extending this platform via custom objects, Salesforce custom object sync, adaptive testing, as well as sandboxes. The suite is much more adaptable as a result and will be better suited to larger concerns that need to get under the bonnet of their social media marketing campaigns. 

Needless to say, there is also much improved reporting with this package, as well as a host of clever technical trickery aimed at boosting its potential even more. 

• Empty list

HubSpot: User Interface

Considering the power and potential that comes packed into Hubspot, the interface is very intuitive, making the service appealing to companies with staff that need to jump in and out of it on a regular basis, while the support featured in higher-end editions will help ease the initial learning curve.

The starting point is that HubSpot puts pretty much everything any business could need in one dashboard. Measuring and optimising a business's social media reach is right there, alongside detailed reporting and the ability to automate away tedious parts of the job. 

Some of its rivals, like Circleboom and Loomly, might be a little more slick, but we never had a problem getting around HubSpot. 

• HubSpot Service Hub review

HubSpot: Support

HubSpot is a strong contender for your business in the social media marketing stakes not least because of its powerful support structure. 

Things kick off with a dedicated online help center, which contains useful information across many common themes that might come up on a daily or monthly basis. HutSpot has made neat guides and a searchable database to help, too. 

From there, support options depend on your package or product plan, which from Free to Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. All plans get a lively community, while Starter, Professional, and Enterprise offer email support. Chat options come with Starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans, too, while phone support is limited to Professional and Enterprise plans only.

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HubSpot: The competition

You’ll find the the likes of Buffer, Sendible, Loomly, Zoho Social, and, indeed, Hootsuite offer plenty of variations on the social media theme: they’re all sufficiently different to HubSpot, too, and, if CRM isn’t on your checklist of needs, might make better alternative choices to consider.

While HubSpot is essentially a complete solution for businesses that need a CRM on top, as opposed to just a social media management tool, the suite is ideal for those looking to integrate their workplace software. 

However, the social media management software market is a diverse one, and make sure to check our social media management tool guide to find the best. 

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HubSpot: Final verdict

Hubspot is well known for its very capable CRM platform, but there is much more to its software offerings than that. Indeed, if you’re looking for a social media management suite that can also work alongside other everyday business tools then it may be worth talking to the HubSpot sales staff in order to see if they can formulate a personalised plan to match your needs. 

In fact, that is one of the best things about HubSpot: it’s as much about the ability to customise as the extensive range of features on offer. Added together, the end product is a formidable one.

• Sign up to Hubspot

Buffer bills itself as a simple but effective, all-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses. It’s just one of many different social media management tools out there on the market, but the emphasis with Buffer is on affordability, which is always welcome given current trading challenges.

If you’re after a one-stop social media management solution then Buffer should do the trick, even within the confines of its free edition. To unleash its full potential though you’ll need to invest more time and money to access its full suite of tools.

• Sign up for a Buffer plan

Like its rivals in Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Circleboom, among many others, Buffer aims to make the world of a social media manager – or whoever has the keys to the social accounts – that much easier by automating scheduling, helping visualise content, and more. 

If your company is based on the UK, Buffer is currently offering a free trial, so make sure to claim that, at least to try out its features. 

Let's dive into our review of the Buffer social media management tool. 

• Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar

Buffer: Plans and Pricing

Buffer has kept a keen eye on simplicity with its pricing plans. 

There’s something for most if not all types of business, and payment can be done on a monthly or annual basis. If you’re simply starting out and want to gain some experience using a social medial management tool, the Free package makes a lot of sense. Better still, this comes with a £0 (or $0) price tag, which is ideal if you’re running to a tight budget and helps you manage up to three channels.

Next up is the Essentials package, which costs $6 per month or $5 annually per social channel. It’s easy to add additional channels when and if you need them, and by paying annually you’ll shave $12 off the overall cost over a year. You can try this plan free for 14 days and it’s suited to professionals who have to call on publishing, analytics and engagement tools as part of their daily brief.

The beefier Team package is aimed squarely at any businesses that have more of a collaborative arrangement going on. This offers much more user flexibility and costs $12 monthly, or you can knock $24 off the price by paying $120 annually. Additional channels can be added as and when they’re required, meaning lots of freedom for your business. 

Finally, Buffer also offers muscular Agency package, which is well suited to marketing agencies with 10 or more social channels. However, the pricing matches the potency at $120 per month for 10 social channels, though this drops from $1,440 to $1,200 per year if you choose to pay annually. You get all the features of the Team package, plus customs access and permissions and more besides. 

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Buffer: Basic features

As with any scalable social media management tool, Buffer can be used in its most basic incarnation, most suitable if you’re just starting out. Buffer users get an array of basic publishing tools and a handy landing page builder as standard, but if you’ve got a desire to really boost your potential, head for the Essentials or upwards. 

The free tier comes with three channels, basic scheduling, a landing page, the ability to schedule 10 posts per channel at any one time (with no monthly limit), and a useful new AI assistant. 

Meanwhile, the Essentials plan comes with everything in the free tier, plus as many channels as you can wish for, unlimited post scheduling, analytics, and engagement tracking. Those last two might prove the difference between paying nothing and going for the $5 per month per channel option. 

All of the teams get iOS and Android apps, which make working on the go much easier, and support for 30+ app integrations, plus two-factor authentication. 

Buffer: Advanced features

By upgrading to either Team or Agency, you business will instantly have the ability to do much more. For example, scheduled posts per channel are limited to just 10 per  on the free tier, rising to up to 2,000 on the higher tiers. Of course, it’s easy to work with the obvious social outlets including Instagram, Facebook, X (or Twitter), LinkedIn, and Pinterest on any edition of Buffer.

Similarly, on the higher tiers, there are assorted scheduling options, a calendar view, plus handy day to day features such as a link shortener capability and one for tweaking custom links, too. The paid-for editions also deliver features such as custom video thumbnails, multi-channel campaign delivery, and lots of cool options for tweaking Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook posts. 

To cut to the chase, the main features features that the non-free tier options get are analytics, insights, and reporting. Essentials, Team, and Agency all get a performance overview, data access, and much more, while Team and Agency gain branded reposts and a cover page. 

If you feel like any features are missing, check out Buffer's product roadmap. 

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Buffer: Analytics and reporting

Vital ingredients for more efficient social media management are inside Buffer too, such as the power tools for checking audience demographics via machine learning insights, which is basically a smart way of tweaking and fine-tuning your results.

Buffer is also great for its tools that cover the array of analytics and reporting. The ability to get a performance overview is paramount, and that comes packed inside Essentials and upwards, along with more specific history details in individual posts, plus historical insights that help businesses build up a bigger picture scenario.

Users of non-free tiers can see insights into post performance, individual post analytics, data storage, tag analysis, hashtag performance, audience demos, Instagram Stories analytics, Shopify performance, custom and exportable reports, and more besides. 

Adding to the appeal of Buffer is its extensive range of reporting tools. After all, if you have no data to present at meetings the validity of the purchase will soon come into question, no matter how nice the graphs look. 

Buffer offers custom reporting tools, including exportable reports on the higher tiers. However, corporate users will find these options invaluable and presumably not mind the added expense of getting them.

The app also offers important comment detection, giving insights into potentially good or bad posts, alongside hotkey support. 

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Buffer: User interface

One of the best things about Buffer has been the way the designers have made the interface a joy to use. Much of this is down to the simplicity of the layout, with little to get in the way of boosting your social medial management potential. This extends to the more complex and feature-heavy premium products, too, even those that pack in powerful reporting tools and comprehensive data analytics.

While some rival services can feel overburdened with features, Buffer manages to treat the line perfectly, and we never really encountered any issues getting around. 

The addition of an AI assistant also helps with discovery of new features and creating ideas from scratch, which could be useful in smaller organisations with less people to bounce things off. 

We're big fans, and for anyone who cares about UI and UX, Buffer has you covered. 

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Buffer: Support and transparency

We’ve been really impressed with the attention to detail displayed by Buffer support. Like everyone other social media rival, there’s a great starting point via an online help centre, which contains a searchable database of help topics, plus a whole host of tutorials and other insights into how to get the best from Buffer.

Anyone needing further help on a one-to-one basis can contact the Buffer Support team. The process is very straightforward: simply raise a ticket using one of the many different subject area options to trigger a response. The Buffer community is another aspect of the support options found inside this package that allows a wider range of contact options to users.

On top of support, Buffer offers some of the best transparency in the industry, regularly reporting everything via its transparency dashboard. For example, you can see that Buffer has over 154,000 MAUs, $1.5 million in MRR, and makes $27.17 per user on average. 

Buffer also publishes its staff's salaries transparently, breaks down what each subscription supports (eg, hosting, retreats, or salaries), and so much more. The addition really serves to build trust in Buffer as a company. 

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Buffer: The competition

While users with fairly basic needs will be able to make use of Buffer, this is a social media management package that will really come into its own for larger business concerns. So while the likes of Hootsuite, Sendible, Loomly, HubSpot, and Zoho Social are all competitor products worth looking at, Buffer's packages do have a great deal of scalability.

After spending many hours testing Buffer and its rivals, we can say that while some have more powerful features than Buffer at the absolute high-end, none of them manage to artfully combine so many features in a non-threatening and understandable way, which is a real plus. 

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Buffer: Final verdict

Buffer is one of the best full-service social media management suites you can get and there’s a package to suit all kinds of user. 

Naturally, the free edition lacks some of the muscle that comes with the premium editions, so it’s worth spending a little more if you want to boost your social media management potential. Along with its ease of use, there’s no doubting the potency of Buffer, while the capacity for expanding its capabilities is great, too.

For example, there are over 30 different third-party integration options, letting users harness the likes of Zapier and more. We’re also very keen on the ability to use Buffer quickly and easily on iOS and Android, creating room for more efficiency when you’re not able to carry out tasks at your desk. 

Overall, it’s easy to see why Buffer continues to draw in plenty of new customers since its 2010 launch, and we can't recommend its software highly enough. 

• Sign up to Buffer here

Looking for the latest version? Check out our 2024 Adobe After Effects review 

Adobe After Effects is the grade-A, pro-level, industry-standard for visual effects software. Used by countless professional editors, artists, and compositors to bring stellar VFX to the screen. 

It's not hard to see why it's one of the best VFX software tools on the market: After Effects is a feature-rich, intuitive special effects powerhouse. 

When we last reviewed Adobe’s video effects tool, the focus for improvement was on performance and time-saving features - something it delivered with aplomb. 

A lot of new tools have been added over the last two years, and we’ll be taking a look at some of the ones that impressed us the most through the course of this review.

Explore our round-up of the best Adobe After Effects alternatives 

Apple silicon 

Mac users will be delighted to find that, just like Adobe’s Premiere Pro, After Effects 2022 (version 22.3), offers native support for Apple’s new M1 family of processors. 

It’s extremely reassuring for those who prefer the Mac platform, that their software of choice is migrating to the new architecture. Users will experience shorter launch times, improved UI responsiveness, and faster rendering, thanks to this support.

Frame.io

Perhaps one of the biggest improvements to After Effects (and Premiere Pro), is the inclusion of Frame.io. You need to be logged into your Creative Cloud account in order to take advantage of these features, and Frame.io includes 100GB of storage in addition to your usual Creative Cloud allowance. 

You’re able to share up to 5 projects with 2 users and an unlimited number of reviewers. It can be accessed from a web browser, or directly within After Effects.

There’s an enhanced version of this service (which you can try free for 30 days), called the Frame.io Team Plan, which includes additional storage, and the ability to share an unlimited number of projects with up to 15 users.

As you can tell by what’s on offer, this service allows you to share projects and get real-time timecode-accurate feedback on the work in progress. This is an ideal and extremely useful tool when discussing work with colleagues and clients, and controlling exactly what and where changes should be made on a collaborative project.

Media swapping 

Media replacement is another impressive new feature. The way it works is really simple: use After Effects to create a template, just as you would normally. Once done, drag various elements to the Essential Graphics panel, select their editable properties, export it, and you’re pretty much done. 

Do note however, that not all properties of an item can be manipulated and altered from Premiere Pro, but the list is large enough to satisfy most, if not all, needs.

Objects such as text, images and video clips, can be made swappable turning your templates into highly useful and versatile tools, with as numerous editing options as are required. Creating various versions (depending on your needs) is also possible, further increasing your possibilities.

This is a great way to get a designer to create a template, while allowing a Premiere Pro editor the flexibility they need to make alterations without having to contact said designer for every needed change. It’s the sort of emphasis on efficient workflows that’s bound to increase post-production productivity.

Working in 3D

Creating 3D modelling designs can be tricky, especially when it’s all done via a 2D interface, so Adobe’s designers have worked to help ease this process.

One of the recent improvements is the inclusion of an optional 3D Ground Plane. With it activated, you’ll get a horizontal plane vanishing to infinity which can be used as a frame of reference when creating your scene. 

This is something that can be quickly toggled on or off so it never gets in the way, and is only there when you need it. The more complex a creation, the easier it is to get lost in it, so this is a most welcome addition to help you find your bearings.

Another great new feature is Draft Preview. Prior to it, you could access a ‘fast draft’ by drilling down a bunch of menus. Now, it’s a button located in the toolbar. Toggling it is highly useful if you have an older computer, or your project is getting very complex. 

Depending on the prowess of your video editing computer, and intricacy of your work, when activated, the quality will likely be reduced. But you’ll be able to manipulate objects more quickly and easily, saving you a lot of time, and going back to full quality is but a click away. 

Under the hood enhancements

But it’s not all big tentpole features. After Effects has seen a lot of subtle alterations designed to improve your workflow.

For instance, a lot of work has been done to optimise the visual effects software. After Effects now takes advantage of multiple cores in your computer or video editing laptop when previewing and rendering, taking over power at the expense of other processes and other running software.

This functionality may not be on by default, but you can find it After Effects’ Preferences. You’ll also notice that you can choose just how much of your computer’s CPUs are reserved for other apps (the default is 10%).

Also, if you work with the HEVC video format, new hardware-accelerated decoding is used to improve playback and editing, especially with 10-bit files, whether you’re working on a Mac or PC.

Flexible languages

One of the great advantages of the Adobe suite is the cross pollination of features from one app to another, and this is perfectly showcased with their new Universal Text Engine. 

We raved about this feature in our Premiere Pro review. It allows you to work with multiple languages much more easily, without having to constantly travel to the preferences to switch from one to another. 

There’s support for multiple languages, the latest addition being Cantonese, with left-to-right and right-to-left settings being accessible directly from the Essential Graphics panel. You can even apply different scripts inside the same graphic element. How’s that for flexibility?

Final verdict

All this is actually just scratching the surface of what’s been improved since we last took a look at Adobe After Effects. 

AE version 22.3 is highly impressive. It builds on strong foundations, offering a wealth of new features designed to make VFX quicker and easier. It’s no wonder After Effects is seen as the go-to video compositor. 

And Adobe are far from resting on their laurels, offering new features on a regular basis, making their subscription model an attractive one indeed if you’re a professional designer and editor.

Adobe Premiere Pro vs Adobe After Effects: what’s the difference?

Premiere Pro and After Effects are Adobe’s flagship post-production tools for video editors, designers, and motion graphic artists. 

When it comes to similarities and differences between Premiere Pro and After Effects, the biggest is this: Adobe Premiere Pro is video editing software and Adobe After Effects is VFX software. 

You can still cut videos and add basic effects with either program. Both deliver the familiar, effortless Adobe user experience that makes their tools accessible to beginners and professionals alike. And we awarded both 5 stars in our reviews for each tool for setting the industry standard and offering genuine powerhouse tools for content creators and creatives in film & TV. 

When you compare Premiere Pro and After Effects, it’s not quite accurate to think in terms of a face-off. It’s not really a case of Adobe Premiere Pro vs Adobe After Effects. The two tools are built for different parts of the process, seamlessly working together to deliver an efficient post-production workflow and professional results. 

For more help finding the video editor best apps for you, check out our guide to the best alternatives to Adobe Premiere Pro.  

Sprout Social has been around for a while now and, as a result, has become one of the go-to software options for anyone needing the best social media management or SEO tools. 

The package, spread across several paid tiers, comprises a heady blend of social tools and marries those to a potent analytics edge, which produces a great all-round package for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Anyone looking to take on social media channels for the first time, or to beef up their levels of participation, will find Sprout Social offers plenty. There’s a neat dashboard-style management setup, allowing for easy co-ordination, while the ability to lets multiple users access it means there’s appeal for larger organisations too.

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While Sprout Social comes with a potent yet user-friendly array of social media management tools, the company has worked to still offer an affordable and good value option. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Sprout therefore continues to be a hit with many business owners, who might not necessarily warm to a competitor like Hootsuite or Buffer. 

Let's dive into our Sprout Social social media management review. 

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Sprout Social: Plans and Pricing

You can try Sprout Social for free using a 30-day trial, without the need for any credit card details, which is a great way to get to know the software. 

Following on from that, Sprout Social comes in three different packages, starting with the Standard edition, which currently costs $249 per user/per month, and is billed annually. Alternatively, you can choose to pay for the Standard package on a $199 month-to-month basis.

Stepping up to the next package, the Professional edition is Sprout Social's most popular plan, currently available for $399 per user/per month and, again, billed annually. There is also the option to pay $299 month-to-month with this one, too.

Meanwhile, an Advanced edition costs $499 per user/per month, again, billed annually. This has the option to pay $399 on a month-to-month basis if preferred. If you’re concerned about whether or not there will be enough benefits from the higher-end packages, requesting a demo is also possible, where a member of the Sprout Social team can talk you through the various features and functions.

Finally, there's an Enterprise tier, which is available for large organisations upon request. Sprout Social will tailor the app to your needs, and there is 24/5 support, plus a range of other features we'll get into below. 

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Sprout Social: Basic features

As you’d expect from a Standard package, the entry-level edition is more of a slimline edition of the software. Nevertheless, it does come with a decent array of tools aimed at users with lesser social media management needs than bigger businesses. 

Starting off, the Standard edition bundles in five social profiles, an all-in-one social inbox, the ability to publish, schedule, draft, and queue posts, and a social content calendar, to keep everyone on the same page. 

Users can also carry out review management, monitor profiles, keywords, and locations, as well as deploying social CRM tools. Reporting offers up group, profile, and post-level options, plus there’s the ability to deliver paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts. 

Sprout also offers handy iOS and Android apps for working on the go. 

Sprout Social: Professional features

You’ll really want to invest in Sprout Social's popular Professional edition to benefit from more power tools. While this does involve additional costs, the set of features covers an awful lot of bases. Look out for unlimited social profiles, plus everything that comes packed into Standard. 

On top of that there is competitive reporting for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, incoming and outgoing message content tagging, as well as custom workflows for multiple approvers. More advantageously, there’s scheduling for optimal send times and the benefit of response rate and time analysis reports. 

Crucially, Pro users get trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags, and the benefit of paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also useful for larger concerns is the helpdesk, CRM, and Social Commerce integration capabilities.

For most companies, Professional offers the perfect blend of features and price, and compares favourably to its rivals across the market. 

Sprout Social: Advanced features

Finally, larger business frequently have the need for even more power tools, which can often be a needless requirement for smaller companies. 

Social Sprout’s Advanced package features add a lot more muscle to the software, especially for companies with a major push going on with their social media management needs. The Advanced package comes with everything in the Professional edition, and then adds on the likes of Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity email and push notification alerts when traffic is high.

There’s a digital asset and content library, and chatbots with automation tools. Advanced users can also work with saved and suggested replies, make use of an inbox rule builder for automated actions, and enjoy automated link tracking. Twitter surveys to define CSAT or NPS come bundled good measure.

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Sprout Social: Analytics and reporting

By the same token, the reporting aspect of Sprout Social is as impressive as ever. 

Users can create detailed insights into social media campaigns, get a handle on what works and what doesn’t, as well as producing shareable information that should work a treat in the board room. Naturally, it’s easy to export reports in popular file formats, including CSV and PDF.

Sprout Social has always been handy with its chunky analytics tools and this is an aspect that has become stronger in recent years. The higher-end bundles pack in lots of advanced features for helping combine analytics with lead generation and suchlike, adding value. 

In fact, sales and marketing teams should find it invaluable, while a feature like the Chatbot tool should help improve efficiency too by allowing administrators to build an assistant to help customer needs.

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Sprout Social: User Interface

Sprout Social has been in existence for quite a while now and has therefore evolved into a great on-the-go tool for anyone needing to manage their social media out in the field. 

Sprout Social offers iOS and Android mobile apps, both of which have been nicely produced and include more than enough functionality for most needs, even on the Basic edition. Considering its impressive feature set, Sprout Social is still fairly straightforward to setup and configure.

Even in its desktop incarnation, you’ll find Sport Social to be fairly logical with its layout, especially considering all of the tools that come contained within. There are quick access menu options to commonly used tools like Messages, Tasks, Feeds, and Publishing, helping to improve the overall workflow. 

Similarly, you can get to those vital reporting tools with relative ease too. There are practical considerations too, with a settings area that lets you configure language settings and suchlike for users in other geographical territories.

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Sprout Social: Support

Anyone getting to grips with Sprout Social for the first time will find a whole host of great content at the online help center, including tips, tricks, and tutorials covering every aspect of the software, along with more advanced tools for helping to get the best from Sprout Social. 

If you need to get in touch there is a phone support number, the option to submit a request online or you can simply reach out via social media. The enterprise tier also includes 24/5 dedicated support, for any enquiries or help. 

While some rivals do go a little further when it comes to support, Sprout Social offers most of the things needed to make sense of the software and get the most out of your online social media presence. 

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Sprout Social: The competition

Social media management tools are reasonably plentiful and, if you’re working to a tight or non-existent budget, some of them can be had for free. 

Small business owners might struggle to justify the cost implications of the beefier editions of Sprout Social. With that in mind, heading for something like the basic edition of Hootsuite might make more sense, but there’s also the likes of Buffer, HubSpot, Zoho Social, and Circleboom to ponder over too.

All of the different services have their own pros and cons – especially depending on your specific social media needs – and checking out a variety of cheaper (or free) tiers, plus free trials, is likely the best way to definitively find the best. 

• Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

Sprout Social: Final verdict

If your organisation has advanced social media management needs then Sprout Social offers plenty of appeal, including the ability to ramp up your efforts even more than that with the additional premium solutions. However, all of those extra features and functions add to the price tag, which for smaller businesses can soon make a Professional package seem like a sizeable investment.

Nevertheless, if you’ve got any kind of serious inclination to boost your standing in social media circles, and enjoy the data produced by Sprout Social, you’ll find this is a package that rarely disappoints. Even the Standard edition offers up a surprisingly potent dashboard of delights, via an interface that’s a joy to use, especially if you’re making full use of the iOS and Android apps. 

As we've said throughout the review, Sprout Social is far from an upstart in the space and so you can trust the company to maintain its product, offer quality support, and generally provide one of the best social media management tools in 2024. 

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