I spent 18 months integrating every major social platform's posting API. Here's what each is actually like.
Spent the last year and a half building posting integrations for Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Threads, Bluesky and TikTok. Nobody warns you how
wildly different they are. Writing it down in case it saves someone
evaluating tools or building something.
Roughly easiest to worst:
Bluesky - genuinely pleasant. Open, documented, no approval process. You
can be posting in an afternoon.
Threads - newest API so it's thin. Fewer capabilities than you'd expect
given it's Meta.
LinkedIn - works fine but token handling is fussy and it's strict about
what you can post programmatically.
X - functional, but access tiers are the real constraint, not the code.
Meta (Facebook/Instagram) - the code isn't hard, the permissions review
is. Business verification, app review, and IG has real rules about what
can be published via API.
TikTok - by far the longest wait. Content posting requires an audit and
you're waiting on humans.
The lesson I wish I'd internalized earlier: on every one of these, the
engineering was days and the approval was weeks or months. If you're
evaluating a scheduling tool and it's missing a platform, this is almost
always why. It's not laziness.
Happy to go deeper on any specific one.