Lobsters Stories: Hottest, Newest, by Tag or Domain

Stories from lobste.rs JSON feeds: title, URL, score, comments, tags, date. Filter by tag, domain or keywords for tech-community monitoring.

Why this actor

• Domain mode tells you when your site is shared; keyword filter for cheap alerts.
• Pay only for results: $0.50 per 1,000 storys, no start fee, failed lookups are free.
• Robust: automatic retries with exponential backoff, respects Retry-After, per-item error rows instead of crashed runs.
• Clean, flat JSON/CSV/Excel output ready for Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, Clay, or the Apify API.

Use cases

• Brand/domain mention alerts
• Tech news aggregation
• Trend research by tag
• Pair with Hacker News actor for full coverage

Input

Field	Type	Description
feed	string	Which listing.
values	array	For feed=tag (rust, security) or feed=domain (github.com).
keywords	array	Keep stories whose title/tags contain any of these.
pages	integer	25 stories per page.
maxItems	integer	0 = no limit. Caps cost.

Example input:

{
  "feed": "hottest",
  "pages": 2
}

Output

Each dataset item looks like this (real sample from a test run, long fields trimmed):

{
  "feed": "hottest",
  "value": null,
  "shortId": "7xg9rm",
  "title": "Introducing Firefox Enterprise",
  "url": "https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/introducing-firefox-enterprise/",
  "lobstersUrl": "https://lobste.rs/s/7xg9rm",
  "score": 61,
  "commentCount": 18,
  "tags": [
    "browsers",
    "release",
    "web"
  ],
  "createdAt": "2026-10-14T06:06:48.863-05:00",
  "description": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-14T16:21:39+00:00"
}

Rows that could not be processed contain an error field and are not charged.

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.0005 per story (= $0.50 / 1,000). Use Max results to cap spend. Apify's free plan credit covers thousands of results per month.

Integrations & API

Run on a schedule in Apify Console, call via the Apify API / Python & JS clients, or connect to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack and webhooks. Works as a tool for AI agents via Apify MCP.

FAQ

Is this an official tool? No. It is an independent actor and is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by the data source or any trademark owner named here.

Is it legal? The actor only reads publicly available data from public endpoints, without logins, and does not bypass paywalls or access controls. You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws (e.g. GDPR) and the source sites' terms.

Something broke? Open an issue in the Issues tab; we typically respond within 24 hours and ship fixes fast.