Build your own Buffer replacement: social scheduling with Postiz

If you post regularly across several platforms, you quickly end up on Buffer, Hootsuite or Later. Handy — but: a monthly subscription, limits per channel, and your content plus your API tokens live on someone else's servers. The moment you want a bit more (your own automation, dropping AI-generated posts straight in), it gets expensive or simply isn't possible.

So I self-host my "Buffer replacement" — with Postiz, an open-source scheduler (AGPL-3.0). It runs entirely on my own VPS, costs no subscription, and I can wire it into my own content pipeline.

What Postiz is

A self-hosted tool to schedule and publish social posts — the open-source answer to Buffer/Hootsuite. Calendar view, schedule posts ahead of time, a per-platform preview, drive multiple channels from one dashboard. Mine currently has Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and X connected (TikTok is still waiting on approval).

The key part: it talks to the platforms' official APIs directly. No scrapers, no browser automation, no account risk.

How it runs technically

Postiz ships as a Docker setup. I run it with Docker Compose — four containers working together:

• Postiz itself (frontend + backend in one image)
• PostgreSQL for the data (scheduled posts, channels, tokens)
• Redis as the queue/cache
• Temporal to reliably execute the scheduled publishes

In front of it sits nginx as a reverse proxy with a TLS certificate, served on its own subdomain. Once it's set up it's "set and forget" — mine has run non-stop for weeks.

What you need

• A small Linux VPS with Docker + Docker Compose
• nginx + a TLS certificate (Let's Encrypt) and a subdomain
• A developer app per platform for OAuth (LinkedIn, Google/YouTube, X)

Important: Facebook + Instagram need a Meta app

This is where most people get stuck. You can't just connect Facebook and Instagram with a login — you have to create your own Meta app in the Meta Developer Portal, add the right products/use cases (Facebook Login, Instagram) and permissions, and put the app credentials into Postiz. Only then can you link the two channels.

The good news: Facebook and Instagram run through the same Meta app — so you only need one, not two. And for personal use the development mode is enough: you do not have to push the app through Meta's app review as long as only your own accounts are connected.

The two gotchas

1. OAuth scopes. If a channel won't connect, it's almost always a missing or stale scope. Tip: after changing scopes, restart the container fully — otherwise the process caches the old permissions.
2. Backend startup. The backend needs Postgres, Redis and Temporal up before it boots. A healthcheck that probes both ports (frontend + backend) and gives the backend ~2 minutes to start catches silent crashes and restarts automatically.

Why it's worth it

• Your data + tokens stay with you — no third party sits between you and your accounts.
• No price per channel or per seat. You only pay for your VPS.
• Extensible. Because it's open source and uses official APIs, you can bolt it onto your own automation — e.g. drop AI-generated posts in as drafts and schedule them from the Postiz UI.

A rented scheduler is convenient. Your own one is yours — including the freedom to make it exactly what you need.