Hacker News Scraper

Fast and reliable scraper for Hacker News using the official Firebase API. No browser needed = cheap & fast.

Features

• Lightning fast - API-based, no browser overhead
• Multiple story types - Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, Jobs
• Score filtering - Filter by minimum points
• Comments support - Optionally fetch top comments
• Author info - Get karma and profile data
• Cost effective - Minimal compute usage

Output Example

{
  "id": 12345678,
  "title": "Show HN: I built a tool to visualize code complexity",
  "url": "https://example.com/my-tool",
  "score": 342,
  "by": "techfounder",
  "time": 1705312800,
  "timeISO": "2026-01-15T10:00:00.000Z",
  "descendants": 156,
  "type": "story",
  "hnUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345678",
  "storyType": "top",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-01-16T12:00:00.000Z"
}

With Comments

{
  "id": 12345678,
  "title": "Show HN: I built a tool to visualize code complexity",
  "score": 342,
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": 12345679,
      "by": "commenter1",
      "text": "This is amazing! I've been looking for something like this...",
      "time": 1705313400,
      "timeISO": "2026-01-15T10:10:00.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "commentCount": 10
}

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
storyType	string	Type of stories: "top", "new", "best", "ask", "show", "job"
maxItems	number	Maximum stories to collect (default: 100, max: 500)
minScore	number	Minimum score/points filter (default: 0)
includeComments	boolean	Fetch top comments for each story
maxCommentsPerStory	number	Max comments per story (default: 10)
includeUserInfo	boolean	Fetch author karma and profile

Story Types

Type	Description
top	Front page stories (default)
new	Newest submissions
best	Highest rated all-time
ask	Ask HN threads
show	Show HN submissions
job	Job postings

Use Cases

• Tech News Monitoring - Track trending tech stories
• Startup Research - Find Show HN launches
• Job Market Analysis - Monitor HN job postings
• Sentiment Analysis - Analyze comments on tech topics
• Content Curation - Build tech newsletters
• Competitive Intelligence - Track mentions of products/companies

Integrations

Export data to:

• JSON, CSV, Excel, XML
• Google Sheets
• Webhooks
• Make (Integromat)
• Zapier

Cost

This actor uses minimal compute because it relies on Hacker News's Firebase API instead of browser automation. Typical run costs less than $0.01 for 100 stories.

Performance

• 100 stories in ~5 seconds (without comments)
• 100 stories with comments in ~15-20 seconds
• Parallel fetching for maximum speed

Why Hacker News?

Hacker News is the premier tech community with:

• 10M+ monthly visitors
• High-quality tech discussions
• Startup launches and job postings
• Direct access from Y Combinator network

Support

Having issues? Open an issue or contact us.

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Usage with AI (MCP)

Connect to mcp.apify.com and use natural language:

• "Scrape data using Hackernews Scraper"
• "Get results from Hackernews Scraper"
• "Run Hackernews Scraper with default settings"