Hacker News Scraper: Stories, Comments, Show HN, Jobs

Search and monitor Hacker News stories, comments, Show HN, Ask HN, and jobs by keyword, points, and date. Official Algolia API, only-new mode for alerts.

What it does

Queries the official HN Search API (hn.algolia.com) with keyword, type, points, comment and date filters. Export clean, deduplicated data as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS, or connect directly via the Apify REST API, Python/JavaScript SDKs, CLI, MCP Server, n8n, Make, or Zapier — with no login, cookies, or browser overhead.

Use cases

• Developer Brand & Competitor Monitoring: Track every Hacker News story and comment mentioning your product, competitors, or category keywords with onlyNew: true.
• Show HN & Startup Scouting: Filter type: "show_hn" with minPoints to discover high-traction developer tools and AI launches.
• Developer Sentiment & Market Research: Extract plain-text HN comments (type: "comment") to analyze engineering pain points and tool comparisons.
• YC Hiring & Job Tracking: Pull type: "job" postings directly from Hacker News in structured JSON/CSV.

Why use this scraper?

Feature	This Actor	Generic Browser / HTML Scrapers
Architecture	Direct structured API / JSON / feed requests (curl_cffi)	Heavy headless browser automation
Speed & reliability	2–25 seconds for 50–200 items	Minutes of high compute burn
Pricing model	Pay per result ($0.00 actor-start fee)	Monthly rental or high CU overhead
Error handling	Failed inputs logged in ERRORS key-value record and never charged	Bills compute time even on failures

Input parameters

• Search queries (queries, array): Keywords or brand names to monitor. Leave empty for the latest items of the chosen type.
• Item type (type, string): Which Hacker News items to return.
• Min points (minPoints, integer): Optional. Only items with at least this many points.
• Min comments (minComments, integer): Optional. Only stories with at least this many comments.
• From date (YYYY-MM-DD) (dateFrom, string): Optional. Only items created on or after this UTC date.
• To date (YYYY-MM-DD) (dateTo, string): Optional. Only items created before this UTC date.
• Newest first (sortByDate, boolean): On: newest first. Off: most relevant first.
• Max items (maxItems, integer): Stop after this many items (charged per item).
• Only new items (onlyNew, boolean): On scheduled runs, return only items not seen before. Ideal for brand monitoring.
• Delay between requests (delaySeconds, number): Polite pause between requests (default 0.5).

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ],
  "type": "story",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Output & example output

One dataset row per result. Default table view columns: type, title, author, points, comments, createdAt, url, hnUrl. Full structured JSON is stored in the run's default dataset.

Example output item

{
  "id": "50152015",
  "type": "story",
  "title": "Doom Running on a Bedside Monitor",
  "url": "https://twitter.com/akifyanbak/status/2111853169105903678",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50152015",
  "author": "karim79",
  "points": 1,
  "comments": 0,
  "createdAt": "2026-10-19T13:10:48Z",
  "text": null,
  "storyId": 50152015,
  "parentId": null,
  "isShowHN": false,
  "isAskHN": false,
  "query": "apify",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-25T04:23:49+00:00"
}

Pricing (Pay-Per-Result)

This Actor uses transparent Pay-Per-Event pricing with a $0.00 actor-start fee:

Event	What is charged	Price
item-result	Item scraped (One Hacker News story, comment or job)	$0.001 / result ($1.00 / 1,000 results)
apify-actor-start	Actor start fee	$0.00

Concrete pricing math

• item-result (Item scraped): 1,000 results = $1.00 (50 results = $0.05, 10,000 results = $10.00). Apify's $5.00/month Free Tier covers up to 5,000 results/month at $0.00 out-of-pocket.
• Empty runs (0 results) & skipped duplicates (onlyNew / onlyChanged): $0.00.

Data and compliance

Official public API. Usernames are HN's public handles. Requests are rate-limited and routed through Apify Proxy. Per-input errors are recorded in the run's ERRORS key-value record and are never charged.

FAQ

Do I need an account, login, or API key?
No. This Actor queries public endpoints directly and requires zero credentials.

What happens if I start a run with empty {} input via API or CLI?
Every required input defines both prefill and default values in .actor/input_schema.json, so an empty {} run automatically returns 50+ live records out of the box.