[NEWS · DEVELOPER TOOLS]

Hacker News Scraper: Story & Comment Search

Scrape Hacker News stories, comments and user profiles by keyword with points, dates and type filters. Export to CSV, JSON or Excel, with no API key.

Input: 10 fields, none required. Billed per event on the free Apify plan: Story row $0.012, Comment row $0.01, User profile $0.01. Results export as JSON, CSV or Excel. Last updated 2026-10-04.

Run on Apify Need a custom version

STATUS: PRODUCTION
INPUT FIELDS: 10
REQUIRED: 0
PRICING: PAY PER EVENT
UPDATED: 2026-10-04
OUTPUT: JSON, CSV, Excel

01 / INPUT

What you can configure.

FIELDTYPEDESCRIPTION

StoriesincludeStoriesbooleanScrape Hacker News stories (posts) that match the search query and filters. Turn off to get only comments or user profiles. default: true

Search query (optional)searchQuerystringKeyword or phrase for full-text search across Hacker News titles and story text, for example "web scraping" or "postgres". Leave empty to return all items matching the other filters. default: "web scraping"

Story typestoryTypestringKind of Hacker News post to search: stories, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, polls, or the current front page. default: "story"

Sort bysortBystringSort by relevance (best text match, popularity-weighted) or by date (newest first, best for monitoring new mentions). default: "relevance"

Minimum pointsminPointsintegerOnly return items with at least this many upvotes. Use 100 or more to keep only high-signal stories. 0 means any. default: 0

From date (optional)dateFromstringOnly items created on or after this date, format YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2024-01-01. Leave empty for no lower bound. default: ""

To date (optional)dateTostringOnly items created on or before this date, format YYYY-MM-DD, for example 2024-12-31. Leave empty for no upper bound. default: ""

CommentsincludeCommentsbooleanAlso search comments that match the query and return one row per comment with author, parent story and date. Billed as comment rows. default: false

User profiles (optional)usernamesarrayHacker News usernames to fetch profile rows for (karma, about text, account creation date), for example "pg" or "dang". Billed as user rows. default: []

Max ItemsmaxItemsintegerMaximum rows to return across stories, comments and profiles. Defaults to 10 for a quick test. Free users are limited to 10; paid users can set up to 1,000,000. default: 10

02 / PRICING

Pay for what you collect.

EVENTDETAILPRICE

Story rowOne story with points, comments, type and links.$0.012

Comment rowOne matched comment with author and parent story.$0.01

User profileOne user with karma, about and account age.$0.01

Prices in USD, shown for the Apify free plan. Paid Apify plans get tiered discounts. Platform usage is included.

03 / FAQ

About the Hacker News Scraper.

How much does the Hacker News Scraper cost?

It charges per event: Story row $0.012, Comment row $0.01, User profile $0.01. Prices are for the free Apify plan, and paid Apify plans get tiered discounts. Apify platform usage is included in the event price.

What input does the Hacker News Scraper need?

No field is required. The Actor has 10 input fields and every one has a default.

Which formats can I export the Hacker News Scraper results in?

Results are saved to an Apify dataset. Download them as JSON, CSV or Excel, or fetch them through the Apify API.

04 / RELATED