20 Best Media Monitoring Tools to Use in 2026 [Tested & Reviewed]

I spent over three months testing and reviewing the most popular media monitoring tools. This article summarizes that research and explains which tools are worth your time.

Best media monitoring tools shortlist

Here’s my shortlisted choice of the 10 best tools among 20 platforms I tested and reviewed:

1. Brand24 – best for sentiment analysis and brand monitoring

2. Brandwatch – best for enterprise consumer intelligence

3. Sprout Social – best for social media monitoring and management

4. BrandMentions – best for mid-market brand monitoring

5. Meltwater – best for global media monitoring

6. Determ – best for real-time monitoring for SMBs

7. Mention – best for collaborative brand monitoring

8. Talkwalker – best for enterprise-level social listening

9. Prowly – best for comprehensive PR and media relations

10. Awario – best for monitoring small brands on a budget

The global media monitoring market is booming. In 2025, it was worth about 5.7 billion dollars and is expected to grow by ~140% over the next decade. 

No surprise at all – the ongoing digitalization of business makes brands more oriented toward data-driven decision-making.

And reputation is becoming a crucial business asset that can be a decisive competitive advantage.

Therefore, using media monitoring tools – especially by big brands – is no longer optional. They help track brand perception at scale and respond to emerging risks before they escalate.

In these circumstances, choosing the right tool makes all the difference. The following list is a result of my three-month testing and evaluation process.

I strongly believe it will genuinely help you find the best fit to make your and your team’s work easier and more impactful. Enjoy!

Why can you trust our recommendations?

Media monitoring is what Brand24 has been doing every day since 2011. Our industry knowledge goes far beyond product features and marketing claims.

We’ve grown from a small startup into a widely recognized media monitoring company – and we didn’t do it in isolation.

Operating in a highly competitive SaaS market forces us to constantly observe, analyze, and benchmark ourselves against other tools.

This ongoing race helps us understand not only our own strengths and limitations, but also where different media monitoring tools excel – and where they don’t.

This perspective ensures our recommendations are based on real-world experience rather than just theory.

Best media monitoring tools: Summary

TOOL		BEST FOR
01	Brand24	Sentiment analysis and brand monitoring
02	Brandwatch	Enterprise customer intelligence
03	Sprout Social	Social media monitoring and management
04	BrandMentions	Mid-market brand monitoring
05	Meltwater	Global media monitoring
06	Determ	Real-time monitoring for SMBs
07	Mention	Collaborative brand monitoring
08	Talkwalker	Enterprise-level social listening
09	Prowly	Comprehensive PR and media relations
10	Awario	Monitoring small brands on a budget

Best media monitoring tools: Reviews

Below you can find my thorough reviews of the best media monitoring tools that made it onto the top 10 shortlist. They include key details, such as: 

• official ratings, 
• trial offerings, 
• pricing bottom lines, 
• short descriptions of what makes them stand out, 
• pros & cons, 
• monitored sources, and 
• summaries of use cases for each tool to help you find the best match.

01 Brand24

Brand24 is a media monitoring tool that tracks & analyzes mentions and delivers tailored insights thanks to its AI-powered features.

The tool monitors conversations in real-time across various online sources – both social and non-social. 

🤔 Why I picked Brand24?

Because I work here 😉 But even if I don’t, Brand24 would be high on the list. 

The tool features powerful sentiment analysis that uncovers emotions hidden within online mentions, enabling brands to gain a deeper understanding of public perception.

Moreover, Brand24 allows you to identify industry trends, top brand influencers & haters, most important brand awareness sources, analyze hashtags, benchmark competitors, and much more.

Besides, I like Brand24’s clear and friendly UX and intuitive dashboards. Its AI features, such as AI Brand Assistant, Smart Context Search, and Topic Analysis, can do wonders for your brand reputation insights. 

Additionally, Brand24 allows you to create comprehensive reports that provide a clear snapshot of your brand performance.

Overall, Brand24 is a powerful media monitoring tool perfect for medium and large-sized businesses.

Its comprehensive monitoring and analytics features enable brands to manage their online presence and protect their brand reputation effectively.

🔍 Monitored sources

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, Bluesky, Telegram, Twitch, websites, blogs, podcasts, video platforms, news sites, review platforms, and newsletters.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• A range of very useful AI-powered features
• The broad coverage of sources of data
• Friendly & intuitive user interface
• Accurate & AI-boosted sentiment analysis

❌ Cons:

• Limited access to historical data
• No social media management features

📚 Learn more about Brand24:

• Check out Brand24 website

02 Brandwatch

Brandwatch is an enterprise-level social media analytics and consumer intelligence tool.

It offers deep & big picture insights into online conversations by leveraging AI-powered analysis and advanced data visualization.

🤔 Why I picked Brandwatch?

The tool is especially powerful when it comes to consumer intelligence.

It allows you to perform a real-time and historical market analysis and do a detailed data segmentation by sentiment, demographics, and more.

The two unique things that make Brandwatch an interesting choice for enterprise customers are:

• Image recognition technology – enables users to track visual mentions of their brand or products,
• Extensive data coverage – Brandwatch connects with CRM systems, Google Analytics, and marketing tools like Salesforce.

Moreover, it helps identify and track influencers who can significantly impact brand perception and audience engagement.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, Twitch, WhatsApp, news sites, blogs, review sites, and forums.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Advanced consumer intelligence
• Custom dashboards
• Image recognition

❌ Cons:

• Expensive plans
• Difficult and time-consuming onboarding process
• Low coverage of TikTok and LinkedIn

📚 Learn more about Brandwatch:

• Check out Brandwatch on their website
• Discover the best Brandwatch alternatives

03 Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a comprehensive social media monitoring, management, and analytics software designed to help brands effectively manage their social media presence across multiple channels.

🤔 Why I picked Sprout Social?

It offers a suite of features, including content scheduling, publishing, engagement, and in-depth analytics.

All that to strengthen your social media performance on many different levels.

One of Sprout Social’s key components is social listening. It allows you to monitor brand mentions, track industry trends, get detailed insights into audience sentiment, and more.

What’s interesting is that the platform provides tools for real-time engagement. So, in other words, you can directly respond to incoming messages or schedule posts on major social media channels.

As an all-in-one tool, Sprout Social is a great solution for medium to large businesses and agencies that require comprehensive social media management and analytics capabilities.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, news sites, blogs, and review sites.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Intuitive and user-friendly interface
• Comprehensive set of social media management & analytics features
• AI-powered automation for efficiency

❌ Cons:

• Pricing quickly escalates
• Reported issues with social listening accuracy
• Limited features in the basic plan

📚 Learn more about Sprout Social:

• Check out Sprout Social on their website
• Discover the best Sprout Social alternatives

04 BrandMentions

BrandMentions is an AI-boosted brand and media monitoring tool.

It helps companies track and analyze mentions in real-time across multiple platforms, including social media platforms, news, video sites, and other non-social sources.

🤔 Why I picked BrandMentions?

The tool offers, let’s say, a traditional set of features that most tools in that niche have. However, it does so with quality and a great user experience! 

BrandMentions’ real-time alerts, sentiment analysis, competitor analysis, and AI-driven insights work exactly as they should.

Sure, the tool occasionally misleads or incorrectly assigns sentiment, but this is typical for any media monitoring software.

Besides, BrandMentions will help you identify influencers and key opinion leaders in specific industries or topics.

Also, you’ll be able to monitor competitors’ online presence and compare their media coverage with your own.

Overall, BrandMentions is a good choice for medium to large-sized companies.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, websites, blogs, forums, and review sites.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• A comprehensive source coverage
• Customizable media monitoring analysis reporting
• Ease of use

❌ Cons:

• Limited advanced analytics
• Frequently reported problems with missed mentions

📚 Learn more about BrandMentions:

• Check out BrandMentions on their website

05 Meltwater

Meltwater is a powerful media intelligence platform that monitors and analyzes enterprise-sized brands’ media presence across both online and offline channels.

Precisely speaking, Meltwater offers features for tracking online news, social media, print, broadcast, and podcasts, providing a holistic view of brand mentions and industry trends.

🤔 Why I picked Meltwater?

The tool offers analytics tracking the volume of mentions, the share of voice, reach, sentiment, emerging trends, top publications, locations, and influencers. 

While these capabilities are pretty standard for most of the media monitoring tools on that list, Meltwater distinguishes itself with two unique features:​

• Custom scoring – it allows for assigning different weights to mentions based on their importance. Very useful thing for a more detailed analysis!
• Rules-based automation – you can automate repetitive tasks within the platform.

Overall, Meltwater is an ideal solution for large enterprises and organizations that require extensive media monitoring and advanced analytics.

The tool’s scope justifies its higher pricing, which is unreachable for smaller companies.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat, Bluesky, news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, review sites, radio, and TV.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Extensive data coverage across multiple online and offline media channels
• Advanced features like AI-powered tagging and rules-based automation
• User-friendly interface with powerful analytics tools

❌ Cons:

• Despite its user-friendly interface, the platform’s extensive features require time for new users to learn
• Some users express concerns regarding contract transparency and customer service
• Users managing a large number of accounts simultaneously have reported occasional performance lags. ​

📚 Learn more about Meltwater:

• Check out Meltwater on their website
• Discover the best Meltwater alternatives

06 Determ

Determ, formerly known as Mediatoolkit, is a dynamic media monitoring solution for PR and marketing professionals.

🤔 Why I picked Determ?

It excels in delivering real-time insights into brand mentions, industry trends, and competitor benchmarking across multiple online sources. ​

While Determ offers standard features like real-time tracking and sentiment analysis, it stands out with two features:​

• AI Assistant “Synthia” – AI-generated summaries and strategic insights into the most influential media coverage and online conversations. 
• Advanced Boolean search operators – they allow a much more detailed and tailored results filtering.

Determ is a nice choice for small to medium-sized businesses seeking a user-friendly media monitoring tool with AI capabilities and customizable reporting.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, news sites, forums, blogs, and review sites.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Customizable mentions filtering and reporting
• AI Assistant

❌ Cons:

• Limited advanced analytics
• Low coverage of social media platforms
• Limited access to historical data

📚 Learn more about Determ:

• Check out Determ on their website

07 Mention by Agorapulse

Mention is a powerful media monitoring tool that tracks and analyzes brand mentions across a broad range of social and non-social sources.

🤔 Why I picked Mention?

It provides far-reaching capabilities for monitoring brand reputation, analyzing trends, and gaining audience insights in real-time. 

Like most tools on that list, it offers sentiment analysis, which allows you to understand people’s feelings about your brand and competitor benchmarking.

Moreover, Mention provides an anomaly detector named Spike Alerts.

The two unique things that make Mention stand out are: 

• Team collaboration features – with just a few clicks, you can tag mentions, assign tasks, and share reports.
• Historical data access – you can collect mentions with up to two years in the past.

Overall, Mention is a great choice for businesses that require real-time monitoring combined with comprehensive data access and collaborative features. It’s well-suited for mid-sized companies. 

🔍 Monitored sources

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, websites, forums, blogs, podcasts, and news sites.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Team collaboration features
• Historical analysis access (on higher plans)
• Multilingual support across +40 languages

❌ Cons:

• Limited advanced AI analytics compared to competitors
• Social platform coverage, data access, and advanced filters are reserved for higher-priced plans
• Basic sentiment analysis – there’s no deeper sentiment segmentation.

📚 Learn more about Mention:

• Check out Mention on their website
• Discover the best Mention alternatives

08 Talkwalker

Talkwalker is a social listening and media monitoring tool that focuses on delivering results to corporate and enterprise-level accounts.

🤔 Why I picked Talkwalker?

The tool helps brands and agencies track and analyze social media conversations, web mentions, and media coverage.

It includes sentiment analysis to gauge public perception and sentiment toward a brand or topic.

Talkwalker covers owned and earned media in 187 languages. Using advanced AI, the tool can deliver the most important and impactful information.

The two unique things Talkwalker offers are:

• Predictive analysis – the tool can forecast topic volumes and trends using machine learning;
• Visual recognition – Talkwalker detects brand mentions in images, videos, and audio.

The tool analyses the data in real time. You also get access to 2 years of historical data.

Besides, Talkwalker works great for tracking press releases. Your PR professionals will surely appreciate it!

The tool’s pricing is undisclosed but according to SaaS review sites, Basic plan starts at around $10,000. Therefore, it’s a good solution for enterprise brands.

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Bluesky, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, Line, news sites, blogs, forums, podcasts, video platforms, and newsletters.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Extensive source coverage
• Predictive analysis 
• Multiple types of data visualizations

❌ Cons:

• UX is far from being user-friendly
• Reported troubles with data mining and sentiment tagging 
• Steep learning curve

📚 Learn more about Talkwalker:

• Check out Talkwalker on their website
• Discover the best Talkwalker alternatives

09 Prowly

Prowly is a platform that offers tools for Public Relations (PR) and media relations. It excels in managing media databases, press release creation & distribution, and media outreach.

🤔 Why I picked Prowly?

Although the tool’s primary focus is on PR and media relations, it also offers features for media monitoring, which can be helpful for PR agencies in managing their activities.

In practice, Prowly provides solutions to track brand mentions and media coverage, helping users monitor the results of their PR campaigns.

However, it is not a dedicated media monitoring software. As so, it is an excellent choice for PR professionals and businesses seeking an all-in-one PR solution with a little support for media monitoring.

It may not be enough for brands and businesses looking for in-depth mentions tracking and comprehensive media analysis.

🔍 Monitored sources

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, news sites, print media, radio, and TV.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Integrated PR tools
• Huge media database
• AI assistant

❌ Cons:

• Lack of in-depth analytics
• Limited media monitoring capabilities

📚 Learn more about Prowly:

• Check out Prowly on their website

10 Awario

Awario is a relatively cheap and basic social media monitoring tool that tracks and analyzes social media conversations and the ones in non-social sources (like websites).

It provides a range of simple media monitoring features, such as sentiment analysis, Boolean searching, competitor analysis, and influencer marketing.

🤔 Why I picked Awario?

Besides the core media monitoring features, the tool includes two unique things: 

• A direct engagement with mentions – you can reply, like, and share mentions from the feed 
• A leads module that supports social selling – it helps you identify prospects who use your tracked keywords with a buying intent or complain about your competitors.

Combining them with the overall simplicity, Awario is a good and low-cost option for smaller businesses and freelancers with basic needs. 

🔍 Monitored sources 

Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Reddit, news, blogs, forums, and websites.

Pros and cons

✅ Pros:

• Simple design and UX
• Lead generation module, great for social selling
• Social interactions directly from the feed

❌ Cons:

• Lack of advanced analytics and AI-supported features that would show the big picture
• Limited coverage – Awario users often complain about the lack of comprehensive monitoring of Instagram, LinkedIn, or Reddit
• No CRM integrations or mobile app.

📚 Learn more about Awario:

• Check out Awario on their website
• Discover the best Awario alternatives

Other media monitoring tools (11 – 20)

Below, you can find some other media monitoring platforms that didn’t make onto my top 10, but they’re still worth checking out:

TOOL		BEST FOR
11	Keyhole	Hashtag and social media campaigns insights
12	Google Alerts	Basic free web mention alerts across news and blogs
13	Sprinklr	Enterprise social media monitoring across multiple platforms
14	Mentionlytics	AI-powered web and social media monitoring with broad online coverag
15	BuzzSumo	Content performance and trending topic monitoring
16	Critical Mention	Broadcast and offline media monitoring (TV, radio, news)
17	Agorapulse	Social media monitoring with engagement workflows
18	Statusbrew	Social media presence and audience engagement management
19	Signal AI	AI-driven competitive and market intelligence
20	Rival IQ	Competitive social media analytics and benchmarking across major platforms.

Media monitoring tools: Evaluation criteria

To ensure our recommendations are maximally structured, trustworthy, and neutral, we used the following evaluation framework.

Core monitoring features (25%)

Each tool on the list must include the most essential media monitoring capabilities:

• Real-time brand mentions tracking
• Sentiment analysis
• Real-time alerts
• Competitive intelligence
• Reporting and analytics 

Additional features (20%)

We also considered features that go beyond the core monitoring functionality. They are the real differentiators between tools that allow gaining deeper insights or streamlining workflows. These may include:

• AI-powered features
• Advanced filtering
• Image recognition
• Historical data access
• Competitor benchmarking

Source coverage (20%)

The range of platforms and sources each tool monitors, such as:

• Social media platforms
• News outlets
• Review sites
• Traditional media coverage
• Newsletters

Daily usability (15%)

How comfortable and intuitive each tool is for everyday use, especially for users without advanced technical skills. This criterion takes into account:

• User interface clarity and navigation
• Onboarding and setup process
• Access to learning resources and documentation
• Customer support
• Accessibility

Value for money (10%)

We considered how well each tool’s pricing aligns with the features and capabilities offered. This includes:

• Pricing transparency
• Free trial and demos availability
• Plan structure and feature limits

Customer reviews (10%)

To include an external, user-driven perspective, we analyzed customer reviews and ratings from independent review platforms. We focused on:

• Overall ratings on platforms such as G2 and Capterra
• Frequently mentioned pros and cons
• Customer support feedback

Media monitoring tools FAQ

What is a media monitoring tool?

A media monitoring tool is software that tracks and analyzes online mentions of specific keywords, brands, products, or topics across social media platforms, websites, news outlets, blogs, forums, and other sources.

These tools help businesses monitor their reputation, analyze sentiment, and gather market insights in real time.

How to choose media monitoring tool?

With such a wide variety of tools available, choosing the right one can be challenging. To help you make an informed decision, I prepared this short guideline:

1. Define you goals and needs

Start by clarifying what you actually need tool for:

• Why do you need it? Is it mainly for managing brand reputation, competitor benchmarking, crisis management, or something else?
• What do you want to track? Your brand, competitors, industry keywords, or marketing campaigns?
• Which sources you want to track? Social media, news sites, review platforms, traditional media?

2. Determine your budget

Media monitoring tools vary in pricing. Decide how much you can realistically spend and whether you need a simple solution or an advanced platform with enterprise-level features.

Check:

• Which features are included at each pricing tier
• Limits on mentions, credits, users, and tracked keywords
• Access to AI-powered features
• Customer support priority at each pricing tier

3. Test the tool

Most tools offer free trials or demos. Don’t hesitate to check them before committing! Test:

• User experience and ease of navigation
• Features and scalability
• Data accuracy and freshness
• Alerts relevance and speed
• Customer support accessibility and helpfulness
• Reporting capabilities

What are the key features of media monitoring tools?

When choosing a media monitoring software, double-check the quality of the following features:

FEATURE	SHORT DESCRIPTION
Sentiment analysis	Determines if mentions are positive, negative, or neutral
Real-time tracking	Tracks and analyzes mentions immediately
Instant alerts	Allows setting rules that trigger instant notifications
Reporting	Generates structured summaries and ready-to-export reports
Influencer identification	Finds people or accounts that shape conversations around your brand
Demographics	Shows audience attributes like age, gender, and location
Competitor benchmarking	Compares your brand performance with competitors’
Share of voice	Presents your brand visibility relative to competitors
Advanced filtering	Lets you refine results with detailed query options
AI assistant	Uses generative AI to summarize, classify, or interpret data
Topic analysis	Uncovers common themes and subjects within conversations
Trends analysis	Highlights patterns or spikes over time
Customizable dashboard	Lets you personalize the workspace and metrics shown

How to set up media monitoring tools?

To set up a media monitoring tool, start by selecting keywords related to your brand, products, competitors, and industry topics.

Then, configure alerts, sentiment filters, and preferred sources (social media, news, blogs, etc.).

Who can benefit from using a media monitoring tool?

Media monitoring tools are valuable for businesses across all industries, including:

• Healthcare
• Tech
• Finance
• Retail
• Public relations

PR teams use them to manage reputation, marketers track campaign performance, and product teams gather user feedback.

In regulated sectors like healthcare or finance, they help monitor compliance-related discussions and emerging trends.

Startups, NGOs, agencies, and enterprises benefit from staying ahead of public sentiment and media exposure.

Conclusion

Media monitoring is no longer a nice-to-have. If you’re treating your PR, marketing, brand reputation, and social media strategy seriously, such software matters a lot!

These tools provide multi-channel and real-time tracking of brand mentions, sentiment analysis, and competitor benchmarking across various online sources. 

Remember that choosing the right tool depends on your brand’s needs, whether it’s real-time tracking, social media focus, or AI-powered insights.

And also on how deep your pocket is 😉

Final thoughts:

• A strong media monitoring strategy helps brands prevent crises before they escalate.
• AI-powered insights allow brands to make accurate decisions faster.
• Choosing the right tool depends on whether you prioritize affordability, depth of analysis, or specific features.
• Always remember to test the tool before long-term commitment.
• Social media monitoring is just one part of a broader brand reputation strategy.