# Hacker News Scraper – Stories, Comments & Search (`ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper`) Actor

$1/1K 🔥 Fast Hacker News scraper! Stories, points, comments, authors & URLs via search or front page. JSON, CSV, Excel or API in seconds. Filter by points or keyword & pull thousands of posts for trend & tech research ⚡

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ninhothedev](https://apify.com/ninhothedev) (community)
- **Categories:** News
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Hacker News Scraper – Stories, Comments & Search

**Scrape Hacker News via the Algolia API: search stories & comments by keyword, points and date; grab the front page, a user's history or a full comment thread. As JSON, CSV or Excel. Free, no key.**

### 💵 Pricing

**Pay per result — $0.0005 per item.** No subscription, no proxy needed. You only pay for the data you scrape, and new Apify accounts include free monthly credits so you can test it for **$0**.

### 🔎 What can it extract?

- Title, URL, **points**, comment count, author
- Story text / comment text (HTML-stripped)
- Created date + HN permalink
- Full comment threads (flattened)
- Search by tags: story, Show HN, Ask HN, comment

### 🚀 How do I use it?

1. Click **Try for free**.
2. Set the input (see example below).
3. Click **Start** and download results as JSON, CSV or Excel — or pull them via the API / schedule them.

### ⚙️ Input example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "AI agents",
  "tags": "story",
  "minPoints": 100,
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

### 📦 Output example

```json
{
  "title": "An AI agent published a hit piece on me",
  "points": 2346,
  "num_comments": 951,
  "author": "scottshambaugh",
  "type": "story"
}
```

### 🎯 Use cases

- Tech sentiment & trend tracking
- Launch & competitor monitoring
- Building tech-news datasets
- AI/RAG over discussions

### 💰 How much will it cost?

You pay only the per-result price (no proxy cost):
100 → ~$0.05 · 1,000 → ~$0 · 10,000 → ~$5

### 🆚 Why this one

| Feature | This actor | Others |
|---|---|---|
| Front page + user + full threads | ✅ | search only |
| Min-points filter | ✅ | ❌ |
| No key needed | ✅ | sometimes |

### 🔗 Related actors

- [Devto Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/devto-scraper) — dev articles
- [Github Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/github-scraper) — repos
- [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/google-news-scraper) — news
- [Npm Package Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/npm-package-scraper) — packages

### ❓ FAQ

**Key/proxy?** No. **How far back?** All of HN. **Threads?** Use mode=item with IDs.

### 🛟 Support

Found a bug or need an extra field? Open an issue on the actor — fixes and new fields ship fast.

### Legal & privacy

Public HN content via the official Algolia API.

***

**Keywords:** hacker news scraper, hn api, ycombinator, tech news, comments, sentiment, JSON CSV Excel

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

search (keyword/tags), frontpage, user (history), or item (full thread by id).

## `query` (type: `string`):

Search keywords (mode=search), e.g. 'AI agents'.

## `tags` (type: `string`):

Item type for search: story, comment, show_hn, ask_hn or poll.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

relevance (best match) or date (newest first).

## `minPoints` (type: `integer`):

Only keep items with at least this many points.

## `author` (type: `string`):

HN username (mode=user).

## `itemIds` (type: `array`):

HN item ids to fetch full threads for (mode=item).

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum items to return.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "AI agents",
  "tags": "story",
  "sort": "relevance",
  "minPoints": 0,
  "itemIds": [],
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `items` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "AI agents",
    "minPoints": 0,
    "maxItems": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "AI agents",
    "minPoints": 0,
    "maxItems": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "AI agents",
  "minPoints": 0,
  "maxItems": 100
}' |
apify call ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,ninhothedev/hacker-news-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/jTRUbGPYYEqhzrhte/builds/BoRqTbWMh9l7YYuxX/openapi.json