Hacker News Scraper & Search - Keyword Alerts, Front Page

Keyword alerts and list exports for Hacker News, using the official Hacker News API and the public Algolia HN Search API. Get stories mentioning your brand, product, competitors or topics, or export the front page, new, best, Ask HN, Show HN and job lists.

$0.0002 per story, no start fee. Failed sources are free.

Quick start: example input, output and cost

Hacker News search and front-page export from the official APIs: points, comments, dates, Show/Ask HN, keyword alerts with only-new mode. Pay per story.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ]
}

Cost example: A daily keyword alert returning ~30 stories = 900 stories x $0.0002 = $0.18/month.

Monitoring (alerts)

Switch on onlyNewStories, schedule the actor (e.g. every hour) and connect the dataset to Slack, email or a webhook: each run returns, and charges, only stories it has not delivered before. Use monitorName to keep several monitors apart.

Features

• Keyword search (newest first or by relevance), in all stories, Show HN, Ask HN or the current front page.
• Lists: top, new, best, ask, show, job, fetched in batches (a 1,000-story run needs only about a dozen API requests).
• Filters: minimum points, minimum comments, from-date. Stories found by several keywords/lists appear once, with matchedBy.

Output

id, title, url, domain, points, comments, createdAt, type (story/ask/show/job/poll), hnUrl, text (Ask/Show HN), matchedBy, fetchedAt.

Limits

• Hacker News stories only, from the public HN and Algolia APIs. Comment threads are not exported, only the comment count.
• Points and comment counts are a snapshot at run time.

Privacy and fair use

No usernames and no comments are collected. Emails and phone numbers in story texts are redacted by default. We use only the official, publicly documented APIs, at about one request per second, and stay far below Algolia's documented limit. Hacker News content belongs to its authors; link back via hnUrl when you republish.

Event	Price
Story delivered	$0.0002

Not affiliated with Y Combinator or Algolia. Maintained by DigiVibeTech. Questions or bugs: use the Issues tab; we reply within 2–5 business days.

Use it in n8n, Make or Zapier (no code)

This actor works with Apify's official integrations, so you can send results to Google Sheets, Slack, Notion, a CRM or any of thousands of other apps.

n8n: n8n.io

1. In the Nodes panel, search Apify and install the verified node. Add your Apify API token.
2. Choose Actors > Run actor and get dataset, Actor source Apify Store, Actor URL https://apify.com/sophisticated_occasion/hacker-news-search-monitor.
3. Paste the input below into Input JSON. Each result item becomes an n8n item.

Make: make.com

1. Add the Apify > Run an Actor module, select this actor, turn on Run synchronously.
2. Add Apify > Get Dataset Items and map the defaultDatasetId from step 1.
3. Connect any app (Google Sheets > Add a Row, Slack > Create a Message, ...).

Zapier: use the Apify app, action Run Actor (pick this actor, paste the input), then Fetch Dataset Items.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "apify"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerSource": 100,
  "searchType": "story",
  "sortByDate": true
}

API (any language): POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sophisticated_occasion~hacker-news-search-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items with header Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN> and the input above as the JSON body.