I can’t remember which one I learned of first but since about a year ago between Hootsuite and Tweetdeck I almost forget to even log into Twitter.  It seems like where Twitter may be a cool sports car Hootsuite & Tweetdeck are like the Porsche and Ferrari versions of the Social Networking site.

They are so much alike that outside of appearance they’re almost running neck and neck.  But there a few benefits that one has over the other.  For starters they both let you manage multiple twitter accounts and see the Twitterverse in multiple dimensions.  They both allow you to categorize your tweets and the tweets of people you follow so they’re all on the same screen.

Both allow you to manage who you follow and who follows you with just a few clicks although Its easier to to handle important tasks like blocking spammers through Tweetdeck.  But there are a few areas where Hootsuite takes the cake.

For starters Tweetdeck  seems to be having problems with their link shortening feature.  No matter how many times I login it says I must be authenticated to shorten links.  If I need to tweet a link I have I never experience that problem with Hootsuite.  Also Tweetdeck will only let you go back so far when trying to recover some interesting tweet.   With Hootsuite once you get to the bottom of a column it automatically loads more of your past tweets.

Of course the deciding factor for me is that since I use different computers in different locations I can access Hootsuite via the web while Tweetdeck has to be installed on your computer.

What has your experience been with either of these apps?  Do you have something better in mind?