Hacker News Search Scraper

Search and export public Hacker News stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, polls, and author activity.

Use this Actor to collect Hacker News search results for product research, founder and developer signals, technical trend monitoring, market analysis, content research, and AI datasets. Results can be downloaded as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, or used through the Apify Dataset API.

At a glance

• HN search export: Search Hacker News by keyword, tag/type, author, date range, and sort mode.
• Stories and comments: Export public stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, polls, and related search result types.
• Research fields: Collect titles, text, URLs, authors, points, comment counts, timestamps, tags, and HN item links when available.
• Trend monitoring: Track mentions of products, competitors, technologies, companies, and topics over time.
• API export: Send HN rows to spreadsheets, BI tools, research workflows, alerting systems, or AI agents.

Ready-to-run examples

Use these saved Store examples as starting points. Open any example to prefill the Actor input, then adjust URLs, keywords, limits, or filters for your own run.

• Research HN alternatives to Google Analytics
• Analyze Hacker News comments by a public author
• Export Hacker News results for product launch tracking
• Research Hacker News posts about RSS and newsletters
• Collect Hacker News stories about robotics startups
• Export Hacker News discussions about cloudflare blocks
• View all ready-to-run examples (50 examples)

What can it do?

Hacker News Search Scraper uses public HN search data and saves one dataset row per matching item.

• Search stories or comments: Use keywords and result tags to narrow the output.
• Filter by author: Track public HN activity for a username.
• Filter by date range: Limit results to a specific research window.
• Sort results: Choose relevance or date ordering.
• Export clean rows: Use Apify downloads, API calls, schedules, webhooks, and integrations.

Common workflows

• Product research: Track public discussion around a product, API, startup, or category.
• Developer relations: Find where developers mention SDKs, libraries, tools, and integrations.
• Market intelligence: Monitor technical trends, competitor launches, and pain points.
• Content research: Build source lists for newsletters, essays, reports, or research briefs.
• Founder and investor signals: Watch product feedback, hiring trends, launch comments, and emerging markets.
• AI datasets: Export HN stories and comments for classification, summarization, or alerting workflows.

What data can you extract?

The Actor returns one dataset row per public Hacker News search result.

Field	Description
objectID	Hacker News or Algolia item identifier
title	Story, Ask HN, Show HN, or poll title
commentText	Public comment text when the result is a comment
url	External story URL when available
hnUrl	Hacker News item URL
author	HN username
points	Story points when available
numComments	Comment count when available
createdAt	Item creation timestamp
tags	HN search tags or result type labels
storyTitle	Parent story title for comment results
storyUrl	Parent story URL for comment results
query	Search query used for the row
scrapedAt	Timestamp when the row was saved

Pricing

This Actor uses Apify pay-per-event pricing. The prices below come from the current Actor pricing configuration. Apify public plans map to Store discount tiers, so the table shows both the user-facing plan context and the pricing tier name. The final price shown in Apify depends on the user account plan and any custom agreement.

Event	What is charged	Price
start	One-time fee per run	$0.005
result	Per Hacker News story, comment, poll, or job saved to the dataset	$0.000028

Apify may also charge platform usage for compute, storage, proxies, or data transfer outside this Actor pricing. Check the Actor run and the Apify Pricing tab for the exact cost shown to your account.

Input configuration

Setting	JSON key	Use it for	Example
Search query	query	Keyword, product, company, technology, or phrase to search.	ai agents
HN result types / tags	tags	Limit to stories, comments, Ask HN, Show HN, polls, or other HN tags.	["story"]
Include comments	includeComments	Include comment search results when supported by the selected tags.	true
Author username	author	Filter by public HN username.	pg
Date from	dateFrom	Start date for result filtering.	2026-01-01
Date to	dateTo	End date for result filtering.	2026-07-01
Sort by	sortBy	Sort by relevance or date.	date
Maximum HN items	maxItems	Cap saved rows and spend.	50

Example input

{
  "query": "ai agents",
  "tags": ["story"],
  "includeComments": true,
  "sortBy": "date",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example output

{
  "objectID": "12345678",
  "title": "Show HN: Example developer tool",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
  "author": "example_user",
  "points": 124,
  "numComments": 38,
  "createdAt": "2026-06-20T12:00:00.000Z",
  "tags": ["story", "show_hn"],
  "query": "ai agents",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-03T12:00:00.000Z"
}

How to run it

1. Open the Actor on Apify.
2. Enter a query, author, tags, or a combination of filters.
3. Choose sort mode and optional date range.
4. Set maxItems.
5. Start the run and export the dataset.

Search tips

• Start with exact names: Product names, package names, and company names often produce cleaner results.
• Use tags for intent: Search ask_hn for questions, show_hn for launches, and comments for discussion.
• Sort by date for monitoring: Use date sorting and schedules for recurring alerts.
• Add an author only when needed: Author filters are best for public user activity tracking.
• Control spend: Start with maxItems: 25 before broad searches.

Limits and caveats

• The Actor extracts public Hacker News search data only.
• It does not require or use a Hacker News account.
• Some fields are empty depending on result type; comments do not have story points, and stories may not have comment text.
• Search result ordering and availability follow public HN search behavior.

API usage

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~hacker-news-search-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"ai agents","tags":["story"],"maxItems":50}'

MCP and AI agents

This Actor can be used through the official Apify MCP server at https://mcp.apify.com.

For a focused single-Actor tool setup, use:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fetch_cat/hacker-news-search-scraper

Use the same JSON keys shown in the input configuration table, such as query, tags, author, sortBy, and maxItems.

FAQ

Can I search Hacker News comments?

Yes. Use comment-related tags or enable comment results where appropriate.

Can I export results to CSV or Excel?

Yes. Apify datasets can be downloaded as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, HTML, or accessed through the API.

Does this require my Hacker News account?

No. It uses public Hacker News search data.

Can I schedule monitoring?

Yes. Use Apify schedules with a fixed query and date-oriented sort.

Related scrapers

• Reddit Scraper
• Product Hunt Scraper
• GitHub Repositories Search Scraper
• Stack Exchange Questions Scraper
• Substack Posts Scraper

Changelog

0.1

• Initial public release with query, tag, comment, author, date, sort, and maximum-result controls for public Hacker News search data.

Support

If a run fails, returns no data, or a field looks wrong, open an issue from the Actor page.

Please include the Apify run ID or run URL, input JSON, one example public URL, query, or input item, what you expected, and what the dataset returned. Small reproducible inputs make parsing or site-layout issues much faster to fix.

Privacy and data handling

This Actor runs with Apify limited permissions and only processes data needed for the documented run. It uses content lookup inputs and public posts, profiles, videos, comments, or channel metadata needed for the requested output to produce the output dataset and sends requests to public Hacker News Search pages/endpoints; results are stored in Apify run storage for your account. FetchCat does not use your inputs or outputs for advertising, does not use them for model training, and does not retain them outside the Apify run except for transient support debugging when you explicitly share run details. You are responsible for using the Actor lawfully, respecting the target site's terms, and avoiding unnecessary personal or sensitive data in inputs.