Open source vs. managed

Looking for an open-source Ayrshare alternative? Be honest about what you actually need.

First, the fact that matters most: PostGate is not open source. Its source is not published, and there is no self-hosted version. If you searched for "open-source Ayrshare alternative," you likely want one of two different things — and they lead to different answers.

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Two different searches, one query

What are you actually looking for?

Genuinely open-source software

You want to read the source, self-host it, and never depend on a vendor's uptime or pricing decisions. That's a real, well-served need — and Postiz (AGPL-3.0, publicly developed at gitroomhq/postiz-app) is the actual open-source option here, not PostGate. It's a real, actively maintained project — tens of thousands of GitHub stars, thousands of forks, regular releases — that posts to 30+ platforms and can be self-hosted for free with Docker. If this is what you need, go evaluate Postiz directly rather than a vendor that isn't open source telling you it's the answer.

"Open source" as shorthand for cheaper and more flexible

A lot of people searching this term aren't actually attached to reading source code — they're using "open source" loosely to mean "not an expensive, rigid, proprietary vendor." If that's you, and you've already weighed self-hosting against just not wanting to run Postgres, Redis, and a worker fleet in production and handle your own platform-app reviews, PostGate is built for that side of the tradeoff: a managed API that's meaningfully cheaper than Ayrshare, without the operational load of self-hosting.

Side by side

Postiz, PostGate, and Ayrshare compared

Postiz figures are sourced from the public gitroomhq/postiz-app repository and postiz.com's pricing page. Ayrshare figures are sourced from ayrshare.com/pricing. Both are current as of this writing and may change — verify before deciding. PostGate figures come from our own docs and pricing page, linked throughout.

DimensionPostiz (open source)PostGate (managed)Ayrshare (managed)
License & source accessAGPL-3.0. Full source public on GitHub; you can read, fork, and self-host it.Proprietary. Source is not published; no self-hosted version exists.Proprietary. Source is not published.
Deployment modelSelf-host for free (Docker, Postgres, Redis, a worker fleet you run) or use Postiz's own managed cloud.Managed, multi-tenant API — call an HTTPS endpoint, PostGate operates the queues and workers.Managed API — no infrastructure to run.
Starting price & free tierFree forever if self-hosted. Managed cloud from $29/mo (Standard, 5 channels) up to $99/mo (Ultimate, 100 channels) — trial only, no free cloud tier.Free sandbox plan, no card required. Paid plans start at $4.00/mo. See /pricing.No permanently free plan; a 28-day free trial. Paid plans from $149/mo (1 profile) to $599/mo (30 profiles), custom Enterprise above that.
Who runs platform-app review & uptimeYou do, if self-hosting: your own Meta/TikTok/LinkedIn app approvals, your own monitoring and incident response.PostGate operates the shared infrastructure; bring-your-own provider apps available on the white-label plan. See /whitelabel.Ayrshare operates the infrastructure; bring-your-own API keys documented for X (Twitter), with broader coverage described as planned.
White-label branding & custom domainNot a built-in product; a self-hoster can put their own domain in front of their own deployment, but there's no hosted, verified white-label connection flow.Branded logo, primary color, and a verified custom domain on every plan that enables white-label. See /docs/environments.Branded OAuth linking page from the Launch plan ($299/mo); full custom CSS/favicon/footer gated behind a separate add-on.
SDKs & API contractREST API included on cloud tiers and in the self-hosted app; no generated multi-language SDKs published.Generated clients for six languages — Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, .NET — from one OpenAPI contract, plus a hosted MCP server. See /docs/sdks-mcp.SDKs for Node, Python, Go, a CLI, and a native MCP server.
Being straight about the tradeoff

Self-hosting isn't wrong — it's a different bet

Control and cost vs. maintenance and reliability engineering

Running Postiz yourself gets you full control: you own the code, you own the data, and past your server bill there's no subscription. What it costs instead is the ongoing work most teams underestimate — keeping Postgres, Redis, and a worker fleet patched and monitored; handling your own Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn developer-app review and rate limits; building retry logic, delivery evidence, and on-call coverage for the publishing pipeline yourself. Some teams genuinely want that control and have the engineering capacity for it — for them, Postiz is a legitimate choice and we wouldn't talk them out of it. PostGate exists for the teams that evaluated self-hosting honestly and decided they'd rather not build and run that reliability layer themselves, without paying Ayrshare's prices to avoid it.

Why teams choose the managed route

What you get without running the infrastructure

No infrastructure to operate

No Postgres, Redis, or worker fleet to run and patch — call an HTTPS endpoint and PostGate operates the queue, retries, and delivery pipeline. Explore the docs.

White-label environments

Create a test or live environment with a brand configuration — product name, logo, and primary color — for the customer-facing connection experience. Read the environments guide.

Signed webhooks with delivery evidence

Subscribe to signed post.published, post.partial, and post.failed events, and inspect per-target delivery evidence instead of guessing why a post stalled. Read the webhooks guide.

SDKs in six languages, plus MCP

Build from generated clients in Node.js/TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, and .NET, or connect an AI agent to the hosted MCP server with draft-first publish safety. Read the SDKs & MCP guide.

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