📰 Hacker News Top Stories Scraper

🚀 Get hacker news top stories data in seconds. Get Hacker News top stories: title, URL, score, author, comment count, story type and posted timestamp via the official Firebase API. data for news monitoring, tech trend analysis and AI research datasets.

🕒 Last updated 2026-05-27 · 📊 13 fields per record · 500+ top stories · Hacker News (top, new, best, ask, show, job)

The Hacker News Top Stories Scraper extracts structured records from Hacker News. Every record captures the canonical fields you would expect from the upstream source - ready for analytics, dashboards, BI tooling, or further enrichment.

The dataset spans hacker news (top, new, best, ask, show, job) and exposes the same data the official source publishes - normalised, paginated, and exportable.

Who uses this data?

Audience	Use Case
Researchers	Build longitudinal datasets for analysis
Compliance teams	Monitor regulated entities and filings
Journalists	Investigate public records at scale
Data analysts	Power BI dashboards and reports
Academic researchers	Run quantitative studies on public data
Product teams	Embed live hacker news top stories records into apps

📋 What the Hacker News Top Stories Scraper does

• Queries Hacker News for the latest records
• Supports targeted filtering via the input parameters (see below)
• Returns structured records with 13 fields, no scraping artifacts
• Handles pagination automatically up to your maxItems limit
• Cleans HTML entities and normalises dates and identifiers
• Delivers results as data, or data via Apify dataset Get

💡 Why it matters: Public-data sources rarely offer bulk Get. This Actor turns the live source into a queryable dataset.

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
maxItems	integer	No	Free users: 10. Paid users: optional, max 1,000,000.
storyType	string	No	Story Type

Example 1: Default run (preview)

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example 2: Targeted query

{
  "maxItems": 5,
  "storyType": "top"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Free users are limited to 10 items per run. Upgrade to a paid plan to unlock up to 1,000,000 items.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
🖼 Image imageUrl	string	-
📰 Title title	string	-
🔗 URL url	string	-
🔑 ID id	string	-
🔗 HN URL hnUrl	string	-
📋 Type storyType	string	-
⭐ Score score	string	-
✍️ Author author	string	-
💬 Comments commentCount	string	-
📅 Posted postedAt	string	-
📝 Text text	string	-
🕒 Collected scrapedAt	string	-
❌ Error error	string	Error message if record could not be retrieved

✨ Why choose this Actor

Feature	Detail
🌐 No login required	Public data only - no credentials needed
🔍 Targeted filtering	Search and filter via input parameters
📊 500+ top stories	Comprehensive coverage of hacker news (top, new, best, ask, show, job)
🧹 Clean output	Dates normalised, HTML stripped, arrays flattened
⚡ Fast	Direct source access without browser overhead
🔄 Auto-pagination	Retrieves results up to your maxItems
💾 4 Get	data all available
🛡️ Retry logic	Multi-attempt retry with backoff for reliability

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Method	Speed	Scale	Structured Output	Free
This Actor	Fast	1,000,000 records	Yes (13 fields)	10 free / unlimited paid
Manual site search	Slow	Limited per session	No	Yes
Bulk data access	Slow setup	Variable	Partial	Variable
Custom API script	Variable	Unlimited	Requires dev work	Dev cost

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account - includes $5 free credit
2. Open the Hacker News Top Stories Scraper actor page
3. Configure your input - set filters or leave defaults
4. Set maxItems (10 for a quick preview, higher for bulk extraction)
5. Click Run and wait for the dataset to populate
6. access your results as data, or data

💼 Business use cases

Compliance and Due Diligence

Teams use hacker news top stories data to verify entities, monitor regulatory status, and feed downstream pipelines.

Market Research

Analysts map hacker news (top, new, best, ask, show, job) to understand market structure, competitive activity, or regulatory trends.

Lead Generation

Sales teams enrich CRM records with hacker news top stories data to identify prospects and qualify leads.

Investigative Journalism

Reporters use bulk extracts to find patterns, anomalies, and stories hidden in public records.

🔌 Automating Hacker News Top Stories Scraper

Connect this Actor to your existing workflows using Apify integrations:

• Make (Integromat) - trigger a run on a schedule and push results to Google Sheets or a database
• Zapier - automatically Get new records to Airtable, Notion, or your CRM
• Slack - get notified when a monitored entity has new activity
• Webhooks - receive real-time notifications when a run completes

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Academic Research

Study trends, behaviours, and patterns in hacker news (top, new, best, ask, show, job) records across time.

Civic Tech and Transparency

Civic-tech projects build dashboards on top of bulk extracts to surface public-interest insights.

Education

Educators use real hacker news top stories data to teach data analysis and domain knowledge.

Personal Research

Individuals - researchers, hobbyists, family historians - use bulk Get to answer questions that no single web search can.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Paste a few sample records into ChatGPT, Claude, or another AI assistant and ask it to summarise the dataset, explain fields, identify patterns, or suggest filter combinations.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔍 What does this Actor do? It extracts hacker news top stories records from Hacker News into a clean, queryable dataset.

📊 How many records are available? 500+ top stories.

🔑 Do I need an account or API key? No. This Actor uses public sources that require no authentication.

📅 How up-to-date is the data? The Actor queries the source live on every run.

🔍 Can I filter by specific fields? Yes - see the Input section above for all supported filters.

⚡ How fast is the scraper? A typical 10-item preview completes in under 30 seconds.

📄 What output is the output? Records are stored in Apify's dataset storage and can be exported as data, or data.

🏆 Why are some fields null for certain records? Some fields are optional at the source. The Actor returns null rather than fabricating values.

📋 Can I run this on a schedule? Yes - use Apify's built-in scheduler or trigger via Make / Zapier / Webhooks.

💰 Is there a cost to use this Actor? Free users receive 10 records per run. Create a paid account to unlock up to 1,000,000 records per run.

🌍 Does it cover hacker news (top, new, best, ask, show, job)? Yes - see the coverage line above.

🛡️ Is this Actor compliant? The Actor accesses only publicly available data, in line with the source's published terms of service.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Get data directly from the Apify platform to:

Spreadsheets & Databases Google Sheets - Microsoft data - Airtable - Notion - PostgreSQL - MySQL - MongoDB

Automation & Workflows Make (Integromat) - Zapier - n8n - Pipedream - Activepieces

Cloud Storage AWS S3 - Google Cloud Storage - Azure Blob Storage - Dropbox

APIs & Webhooks REST API - Webhooks - Apify API

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more public-data scrapers.

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Need help? Visit the Apify Discord community or open a support ticket.

Disclaimer: This Actor accesses publicly available data from Hacker News in compliance with the source's terms of service. Data is provided as-is for informational purposes. Verify all records against the official source before relying on them for legal or business decisions.