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Hacker News Scraper

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from $0.10 / 1,000 results

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Hacker News Scraper

Hacker News Scraper

Scrape Hacker News stories, comments, and user data. Supports top/new/best/ask/show/job story feeds and full-text keyword search via the Algolia API. Extract titles, URLs, scores, authors, comment counts, and timestamps.

Pricing

from $0.10 / 1,000 results

Rating

0.0

(0)

Developer

Monkey Coder

Monkey Coder

Maintained by Community

Actor stats

1

Bookmarked

55

Total users

19

Monthly active users

15 days ago

Last modified

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πŸ“° Hacker News Scraper

Scrape stories, comments, and user data from Hacker News β€” the tech community's most popular link aggregator.

✨ Features

  • Multiple feed modes: Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, and Job stories
  • Full-text search: Search stories by keyword via the Algolia HN Search API
  • User submissions: Fetch all stories submitted by a specific user
  • Optional comments: Include top-level comments for each story
  • No authentication required: Uses the official HN Firebase API and Algolia HN Search API

πŸ”§ How It Works

  1. Select a mode (top, new, best, ask, show, job, search, or user)
  2. For search mode, provide a keyword query
  3. For user mode, provide a HN username
  4. Set the max results limit
  5. Optionally enable top comments fetching (slower but richer data)

πŸ“‹ Input Parameters

ParameterTypeDescription
modeSelectFeed type: top, new, best, ask, show, job, search, or user
queryStringSearch keyword (search mode only)
usernameStringHN username (user mode only)
search_sortSelectSort by relevance or date (search mode only)
max_resultsIntegerMaximum stories to return (1–500)
include_commentsBooleanFetch top-level comments per story
request_timeoutIntegerHTTP timeout in seconds

πŸ“¦ Sample Output

{
"id": 12345678,
"title": "Show HN: I built an open-source AI tool",
"url": "https://github.com/example/project",
"score": 342,
"author": "johndoe",
"num_comments": 87,
"created_at": "2026-03-23T10:30:00+00:00",
"type": "story",
"text": "",
"hn_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
"top_comments": [
{
"id": 12345679,
"author": "janedoe",
"text": "This is amazing! I've been looking for something like this.",
"created_at": "2026-03-23T10:45:00+00:00"
}
],
"fetched_at": "2026-03-23T12:00:00+00:00"
}

πŸ“Š Modes

ModeDescriptionSource
topCurrent front-page stories ranked by scoreFirebase API
newMost recently submitted storiesFirebase API
bestHighest-voted stories of all timeFirebase API
ask"Ask HN" discussion threadsFirebase API
show"Show HN" project showcasesFirebase API
jobYC startup job postingsFirebase API
searchFull-text keyword search across all storiesAlgolia API
userAll stories submitted by a specific userFirebase API

⚑ Performance Notes

  • Feed modes (top/new/best/ask/show/job): Each story requires a separate API call. 100 stories β‰ˆ 15–30 seconds.
  • Search mode: Uses Algolia's batch API, much faster. 100 results β‰ˆ 2–5 seconds.
  • With comments enabled: Adds ~5 extra API calls per story. Expect 2–3Γ— longer run times.
  • Rate limits: Both APIs are generous but the Actor includes retry logic for 429 responses.

πŸ”— Data Sources