Hacker News Scraper API – Top, New, Best & Search

Hacker News scraper and API that reads the official Hacker News Firebase API and the Algolia HN Search API to return story title, URL, points, comment count and date for top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN and job lists, or any keyword search.

What does it do?

• Front-page lists: top, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN and jobs, in HN rank order.
• Full-text keyword search over all of Hacker News (relevance or newest first), with a "last N days" filter.
• Minimum points filter.
• Clean JSON: id, rank, type, title, URL, HN discussion link, points, comments, ISO date.
• No usernames, profiles or comment bodies.

Use cases

• Tech newsletters and digests: the top 30 stories every morning.
• Launch monitoring: track mentions of your product or competitors on HN.
• AI agents and RAG: feed fresh developer news to an LLM.
• Trend research: what topics reach 100+ points.

Input

Field	Description
mode	Which list to fetch, or "search" to search all Hacker News. Example: top
query	Only for mode "search". Example: AI agents
tags	Only for mode "search". Algolia tags: story, show_hn, ask_hn, front_page, poll. Example: story
sortBy	Only for mode "search". Example: date
sinceDays	Only for mode "search". 0/empty = any time. Example: 7
minPoints	Keep only items with at least this score. Example: 100
maxItems	Example: 30

Example input:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "AI agents",
  "sortBy": "date",
  "minPoints": 50,
  "maxItems": 25
}

Output

Real output (first items of a run on 30 Oct 2026):

[
  {
    "id": 50296486,
    "rank": 1,
    "type": "story",
    "title": "We ran AI agent swarms in Minecraft and Mindustry",
    "url": "https://labs.ycombinator.com/projects/games/index.html",
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50296486",
    "points": 289,
    "commentsCount": 100,
    "createdAt": "2026-10-29T21:40:28Z",
    "source": "algolia"
  },
  {
    "id": 50291116,
    "rank": 2,
    "type": "story",
    "title": "Launch HN: Simantic (YC F26) – Firmware Simulation for AI Agents",
    "url": null,
    "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50291116",
    "points": 69,
    "commentsCount": 21,
    "createdAt": "2026-10-29T15:56:32Z",
    "source": "algolia"
  }
]

Export the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, read them through the API, or send them to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n or webhooks. You can also run this Actor from AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.15 per 1,000 items plus $0.00005 per run start. There is no extra platform usage charge.

FAQ

Which APIs does it use? The official Hacker News API (hacker-news.firebaseio.com) for lists and the public Algolia HN Search API (hn.algolia.com/api) for search.

Does it return comments or usernames? No. It returns story-level metadata only, to avoid personal data.

How fast is it? 30 top stories take a few seconds.

Can I schedule it? Yes, use Apify schedules (e.g. hourly) and webhooks.

Why fewer items than maxItems? Deleted/dead items are skipped, and the minPoints filter can remove items.

Do I need a login or API key? No. It uses the source's public API; you only need an Apify account.

Can AI agents use it? Yes. Call it through the Apify API, or from Claude, Cursor or any MCP client via the Apify MCP server.

Data source and license

Sources: Hacker News API (Y Combinator, public, no key) and HN Search API by Algolia. Linked articles belong to their publishers. Not affiliated with Y Combinator or Algolia.

This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the data source. You are responsible for using the data in line with the source's license and terms.