Social Media Management Tools · reliability comparison
Buffer vs Later: which is more reliable? (2026)
Later is more reliable than Buffer, scoring 90.1 vs 58.8 out of 100. Over the last 90 days Buffer reported 21 incidents and Later reported 2, with effective uptime of 99.23% and 99.89% respectively. Later resolves incidents faster on average (1h 40m).
Data updated Nov 1, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | Buffer | Later |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 58.8 | 90.1 |
| Rank (social media management tools) | #7 | #2 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.23% | 99.89% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 21 | 2 |
| Partial / major outages | 8 | 2 |
| Avg time to resolve | 3h 36m | 1h 40m |
| Outages we detected | 0 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 100/100 | 100/100 |
Where Buffer and Later differ
- Buffer reported 10.5× as many incidents as Later over the last 90 days (21 vs 2).
- Buffer had 8 partial or major outages, compared with 2 for Later.
- Later fixes problems faster: 1h 40m on average, against 3h 36m for Buffer (2.2× quicker).
- Buffer's longest outage on record lasted 3d (Jul 13, 2026); Later's lasted 1d (Jan 25, 2026).
90-day uptime
Buffer
Later
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent Buffer incidents
- Partial outageOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 12m
Affected: Publishing
- InformationalOct 9, 2026 · resolved in 3h 24m
- Degraded performanceOct 8, 2026 · resolved in 1d 3h
Issue Connecting & Refreshing YouTube
Affected: Youtube, Channel connections
- InformationalOct 5, 2026 · resolved in 2m
- Partial outageOct 1, 2026 · resolved in 2h 26m
Issue with publishing to Mastodon accounts hosted on mastodon.social and mastodon.online
Affected: Publishing, Channel connections, Mastodon
- Partial outageSep 25, 2026 · resolved in 1h 20m
Issues with Buffer fully loading
Affected: Community, Analytics, Channel connections, Settings
Recent Later incidents
- Major outageSep 8, 2026 · resolved in 1h 17m
Later Social cannot be accessed
Affected: General Site
- Partial outageAug 13, 2026 · resolved in 2h 2m
Other social media management tools to consider
- Planable · #1 · 99.98% uptime
- SocialBee · #3 · 100% uptime
- Vista Social · #4 · 99.86% uptime
- Sprout Social · #5 · 99.68% uptime
See the full most reliable social media management tools ranking →