Hacker News Monitor & Scraper

Search and monitor Hacker News via the official Algolia HN API — no key, no login, no rate-limit pain. Stories, comments, Show HN launches, Ask HN, job posts, full comment trees, and author karma.

Hacker News is where tech launches break first. This actor is built for the people who watch it professionally: founders tracking competitor mentions, investors scouting Show HN launches, and engineers monitoring tech discussions.

What it does

Mode	Output
search	Items matching keywords, filtered by type (story/comment/ask_hn/show_hn/job/poll), min points, date, author
top	Current front page, or high-point stories above your threshold
item	A story plus its entire flattened comment tree — every reply, one row each
watch	Keyword mention monitoring across stories AND comments, with sinceTimestamp resumption
author	User profiles — karma, activity, account age

Input examples

Show HN launches from the last week with 50+ points — the "launch radar":

{
  "mode": "search",
  "itemType": "show_hn",
  "minPoints": 50,
  "sinceTimestamp": 1758500000
}

Brand mention monitoring (schedule hourly):

{
  "mode": "watch",
  "queries": ["acme corp", "competitor.io"],
  "sinceTimestamp": 1758980000
}

Full comment thread for analysis:

{ "mode": "item", "itemIds": [4058874] }

Author lookup:

{ "mode": "author", "usernames": ["pg", "dang"] }

Example output

{
  "recordType": "search_result",
  "objectId": 4058874,
  "kind": "story",
  "title": "Show HN: Reladraw – A diagram language",
  "url": "https://reladraw.example",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4058874",
  "author": "someuser",
  "points": 409,
  "numComments": 119,
  "createdAtI": 1758980400,
  "createdAt": "2026-09-27T14:00:00.000Z",
  "tags": ["show_hn"]
}

Why this one

• Mention monitoring is the wedge — incumbents dump story lists; watch + sinceTimestamp + comments coverage means you catch every brand/competitor mention the moment it's posted.
• Launch radar — show_hn + minPoints is the fastest way to surface what's actually gaining traction.
• Comment trees included — item mode flattens full discussions, essential for sentiment and discussion analysis.
• Official API — no scraping, no keys, stable forever.

Pricing

$1 per 1,000 results ($0.001 per dataset row).

FAQ

Does Hacker News Monitor need a login or API key? No — every row comes from public endpoints. Provide a proxy only if your network is heavily rate-limited.

How do I monitor on a schedule? Attach the actor to an Apify Schedule (daily/weekly) and use the watch/monitor mode if present — each run emits a fresh, diff-able dataset.

What does each row contain? See the output fields table above; every row carries a scrapedAt timestamp so datasets can be deduped across runs.

Is it legal to scrape this data? The actor only accesses publicly available data — the same pages/APIs a browser sees. Scraping public data for research, monitoring, and analysis is common practice, but platform Terms of Service and the rules in your jurisdiction still apply to how you use it. Consult legal counsel for your specific case.

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