API field guide
Real-time social monitoring, without a polling loop.
Understand what a real-time monitoring API is, where free and self-hosted options fit, and when a managed feed earns its place in an operating stack.
- Interface
- WebSocket + REST
- Coverage
- Six source families
- Typical X
- 150-250ms
Polling versus real-time push
Most monitoring tools poll: they re-check each account every 30-60+ seconds, so detection is only as fast as the loop, and rate limits accumulate. A real-time API holds an open WebSocket and pushes each post as it lands. For use cases where the first few seconds matter, trading on KOL tweets, breaking-news alerting, and prediction markets, push wins decisively.
{
"platform": "x",
"author": "@elonmusk",
"latency_ms": 182,
"text": "Cybertruck production ramping hard."
}Cybertruck production ramping hard.
Your options in 2026
- Self-hosted / open-source (GitHub): free to run and full control, but you build and maintain detection per platform and live with polling latency.
- Single-platform APIs: useful when one source is enough; you stitch the rest together yourself.
- Social listening suites: dashboards for brand analytics, not low-latency event APIs.
- Managed multi-platform API (1322): source-specific feeds for X, Instagram, Truth Social, YouTube, Binance Square, and 15+ news outlets, with normalized contracts and routed delivery options.
What 1322 delivers
- Real-time WebSocket push, typically 150-250ms from publication.
- Six platforms in one normalized JSON event schema. See all platforms.
- REST API for tracked-account management, without platform developer accounts.
- Delivery to your WebSocket consumer, Discord bot, Telegram, or signed webhooks.
- Open example clients on GitHub and a hosted live feed when you do not want to code.
Compare the field: Twitter API alternatives, Instagram API alternatives, and Truth Social API alternatives.
Common questions
What is a real-time social media monitoring API?
It is an API that pushes new posts from social platforms to your code the moment they are published, instead of you polling each platform on a timer. A good one delivers structured JSON events over a WebSocket within a few hundred milliseconds, covers multiple platforms, and handles the detection infrastructure for you.
Is there a free real-time social media monitoring API?
Free tiers are usually rate-limited or near-real-time (polling). Fully real-time push at scale is paid because it needs always-on detection infrastructure. 1322 starts at $250/month for 100 tracked accounts with WebSocket push; self-hosted open-source scrapers are 'free' but cost you servers and maintenance.
Is there an open-source / GitHub option?
Yes, there are open-source scrapers and clients on GitHub for individual platforms (Twitter/X, Truth Social via Mastodon endpoints, etc.). They are a fine start if you want full control and can maintain them. 1322 also publishes open example clients on GitHub that connect to its WebSocket and REST API.
What is the best real-time social media monitoring API?
It depends on coverage. Single-platform tools are often cheaper if you need one source. If the workflow spans X, Instagram, Truth Social, YouTube, Binance Square and news, 1322 manages those source-specific subscriptions in one workspace with normalized event contracts.
How is this different from social listening tools?
Social listening tools (Brandwatch, Awario, Mentionlytics) are dashboards for brand sentiment and analytics, often with delayed data. A monitoring API like 1322 is built for speed and automation: raw post events delivered in milliseconds to your bots, trading systems, or alerting, not a marketing dashboard.
One API. The sources your system actually watches.
Receive real-time events from the source feeds you subscribe to, then normalize them in the consumer workflow that fits your desk.