OttoKit
OttoKit keeps widening its WordPress trigger surface one plugin at a time
Comparison · Mkt Auto
Buttondown vs Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Buttondown and Kit (formerly ConvertKit) — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:email-marketing
Buttondown vs Kit (formerly ConvertKit): at a glance
What is Buttondown?
Buttondown ships almost daily, and most of it is someone else's bug report closed.
The changelog is a near-daily log of two to four items, overwhelmingly fixes, many crediting the customer who reported them by name. The editor accounts for a disproportionate share — pasted Word documents locking it, cursors that would not sit between stacked tables, blank lines above tables that could not be deleted. Feature work is smaller and steadier: multi-select subscribe form fields, a searchable font specimen panel, Bluesky link cards that re-sync themselves.
What is Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Kit rebuilt its landing page editor, then handed the controls to an AI agent.
Kit's recent releases converge on one thing: giving creators a full publishing surface inside Kit rather than sending them to a third-party page builder. The landing page editor was rebuilt in June with 20+ templates and full control over layout, fonts and sections; custom favicons and the Creator profile to Newsletter site rename finished the job of making those pages feel owned rather than hosted. The newest release lets the Kit MCP build and edit those pages directly. Alongside runs an audience-intelligence thread - Subscriber Signals in early access - and network features letting creators request connections with each other.
Buttondown vs Kit (formerly ConvertKit): editorial side-by-side
Buttondown
5.0MKT AUTO
Buttondown ships almost daily, and most of it is someone else's bug report closed.
◆ Current state
The changelog is a near-daily log of two to four items, overwhelmingly fixes, many crediting the customer who reported them by name. The editor accounts for a disproportionate share — pasted Word documents locking it, cursors that would not sit between stacked tables, blank lines above tables that could not be deleted. Feature work is smaller and steadier: multi-select subscribe form fields, a searchable font specimen panel, Bluesky link cards that re-sync themselves.
◆ Where it's heading
The pattern is a small team working a public queue in the open, and the fixes cluster where newsletter software actually breaks: rich-text editing, subscriber state transitions, and cross-posting to social platforms. Several recent items concern silent failures specifically — automations skipping sends without saying so, cross-posts marked failed after publishing, resubscribes quietly changing subscriber state. Correcting quiet-wrong behaviour into loud-correct behaviour is the through-line, and it matters more in a product where a mistake reaches someone's whole list.
◆ Prediction
Expect the cadence to hold and the editor to keep generating items, since that is where the reported bugs concentrate. The entries are day-stamped batches, so individual releases carry no version or theme to read direction from.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
6.3MKT AUTO
Kit rebuilt its landing page editor, then handed the controls to an AI agent.
◆ Current state
Kit's recent releases converge on one thing: giving creators a full publishing surface inside Kit rather than sending them to a third-party page builder. The landing page editor was rebuilt in June with 20+ templates and full control over layout, fonts and sections; custom favicons and the Creator profile to Newsletter site rename finished the job of making those pages feel owned rather than hosted. The newest release lets the Kit MCP build and edit those pages directly. Alongside runs an audience-intelligence thread - Subscriber Signals in early access - and network features letting creators request connections with each other.
◆ Where it's heading
The Kit MCP is the axis. It arrived in May as a read-and-analyze tool - ask questions about your list, create tags or broadcasts from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor - and has now crossed into building the actual published artifact. That sequencing is deliberate: rebuild the editor as a structured, template-driven system first, then expose it to an agent, because an agent can only assemble a page that is composed of describable parts. The rename and favicon work point the same way, toward Kit as the place a creator's web presence lives rather than just where email is sent.
◆ Prediction
Expect the MCP surface to extend from landing pages into sequences and the newsletter site itself, and Subscriber Signals to move out of early access as the data layer the agent reasons over.
Alternatives to Buttondown and Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Buttondown or Kit (formerly ConvertKit).
Craft CMS
Craft 6's alphas keep converting the plugin API, one removal at a time
Joomla
Two security releases ship the same day, and 6.2 finally clears alpha
Flodesk
Flodesk just moved its analytics out of the dashboard and into Claude and ChatGPT.
Formidable Forms
Formidable widens MCP compatibility and locks down signature files
Mailtrap
Mailtrap is assembling a full email operations platform, one category step at a time
See all Buttondown alternatives → · See all Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives →
Recent activity from Buttondown and Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoButtondownMulti-select signup fields and self-syncing Bluesky cards
- 2d agoButtondownSilent automation skips fixed; re-adding unsubscribers keeps them pending
- 5d agoButtondownFaster draft sends; Word paste no longer locks the editor
- 6d agoButtondownBlank line above a table can be deleted
- 8d agoButtondownFont picker becomes a searchable specimen panel
- 12d agoButtondownNon-square icons no longer stretch in the archive navbar
- 19d agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Build and edit landing pages with the Kit MCP ⚡
- 29d agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Request to connect with other creators in the Creator Network
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Your favicon, your brand
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Try the new Kit navigation
- 1mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)'Creator profile' is now called 'Newsletter site'
- 2mo agoKit (formerly ConvertKit)Get early access for Subscriber Signals
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Buttondown and Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Both compete on the same themes — email-marketing — within Mkt Auto. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Buttondown better than Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Buttondown?
Top Buttondown alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Buttondown alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/buttondown for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Kit (formerly ConvertKit)?
Top Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Kit (formerly ConvertKit) alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/convertkit for the full list with editorial commentary on each.