Reddit Monitoring Tools Compared (Plus Hacker News)

Reddit monitoring means getting an alert when a post or comment on Reddit mentions your brand, a competitor or a problem you solve, so you can read it and reply while the thread is still alive. The cheapest way to start is F5Bot, which emails you keyword matches from Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters for free. Keyword alert tools such as KWatch.io and Syften add Slack, more sources and filtering for $19 to $50 a month. Social listening suites (Octolens, Brand24, Awario) cover many networks with analytics. A newer group (RedShip, SignalReply, ReplyGuy) also drafts the reply for you.

This guide compares them, with facts and prices taken from each tool's own website on October 24, 2026. For each one it covers what it watches, how it alerts you, whether it writes or posts replies, and what it costs. Prices change, so check the pricing page before you buy. If you used GummySearch, note that its site says it closed on November 30, 2025.

The tools at a glance

Prices are the lowest paid plan shown on each tool's site on October 24, 2026, in US dollars, billed monthly unless noted.

What to look at before you pick one

1. Which sources it covers. Developer conversations happen on Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub and X more than on Facebook. Broad social listening suites skip Hacker News on their pricing pages (Brand24 and Awario both did when we checked), so check before you rely on one for a dev tool.
2. How fast and how noisy the alerts are. A plain keyword match on a common word floods your inbox. Look for exact phrases, negative keywords, subreddit filters or AI filtering that reads the post and keeps only relevant ones. F5Bot, Syften, KWatch.io and Octolens all offer some form of AI filtering on paid plans.
3. Where alerts land. Email is fine for a few matches a day. A team that replies together needs Slack or a webhook into its own tools.
4. Whether it writes replies, and whether it posts them. Drafting saves time. Posting for you is a different thing: most subreddits ban self-promotion that doesn't add to the thread, and accounts that post canned replies get removed. Tools that keep a person in the loop (RedShip says its MCP server "never posts on Reddit for you") are the safer pattern.
5. The licence. F5Bot's cheapest paid tier is for personal, non-commercial use; a company should price the business tier. Reddit's own Data API terms say commercial use of its API needs a separate agreement with Reddit, which is one reason tools change their Reddit coverage or close.

F5Bot

F5Bot watches Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters for your keywords and emails you each new post or comment that matches. The free plan has 5 keywords with alerts delayed up to two hours and needs no card. Paid tiers add more keywords, faster alerts, Slack and Discord, RSS and JSON feeds, and AI filtering that you describe in plain language. Silver is $12.99 a month or $143 a year, for personal, non-commercial use; Gold, for professionals and small businesses, is $49.99 a month.

Pick it if you want to start today for free, or a few keywords on Reddit and Hacker News are all you need.

KWatch.io

KWatch.io sends an email, a Slack message or a webhook when a keyword shows up on Reddit or Hacker News, and on paid plans also X, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. It can also watch a single Reddit or Hacker News conversation. The free plan has 2 Reddit and 2 Hacker News keyword alerts, without AI analysis, Slack or webhooks. Essential is $19 a month with 20 Reddit keywords; Business, $79 a month, adds the API, webhooks, Slack and an MCP server.

Pick it if you want cheap keyword alerts on Reddit and Hacker News with room to add more networks later.

Syften

Syften monitors a long list of communities: Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Indie Hackers, Lobsters, Bluesky, Mastodon, Discourse forums, podcasts and blogs, with X ($40 a month) and YouTube ($20 a month) as add-ons. Entry is $29.95 a month with email alerts and API access; Standard, $49.95, adds Slack and AI filtering; PRO, $119.95, adds webhooks and an MCP server. There's a 14-day trial of PRO with no card.

Pick it if you sell to developers and want one feed across the many small communities where they talk, not just Reddit.

Octolens

Octolens describes itself as social listening for the agent era. It covers Reddit, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Overflow, DEV and app store reviews, scores each mention for relevance, and sends it to Slack or email, with webhooks, an API and an MCP server on every plan. Pro is $159 a month billed annually with 10 keywords and 15,000 mentions; there's a 7-day trial with no card.

Pick it if you're a B2B or developer company that wants brand monitoring across many networks, with relevance scoring, in Slack.

Brand24

Brand24 is a general social listening suite with a dedicated Reddit monitoring page. It covers Reddit alongside Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, news, blogs, podcasts and reviews, with sentiment and reach analytics, and alerts by email, mobile push, Slack or Microsoft Teams. Individual is $249 a month, or $199 billed annually, for 3 keywords and 2,000 mentions a month, after a 14-day trial.

Pick it if a marketing team needs reports on brand sentiment across mainstream networks, and Reddit is one of many.

Awario

Awario monitors X, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, Vimeo, blogs, forums, news and the open web, with analytics on reach and sentiment. Starter is $49 a month, or $29 billed annually, for 3 topics and 30,000 mentions; the free trial gives you the Starter plan.

Pick it if you want a cheaper general listening tool than Brand24 and don't need Hacker News.

RedShip

RedShip is built for founders who want customers from Reddit. It checks Reddit every morning for posts where your product fits, sends them by email or Slack, and suggests a reply with AI. It has a Chrome extension and an MCP server, and it never posts for you. There's no free plan; a 7-day pass costs $12 once, then monthly plans.

Pick it if Reddit is your main channel and you want a daily list of threads with a suggested reply to edit.

SignalReply

SignalReply scans Reddit and Hacker News on its $19-a-month Explorer plan, with X and real-time alerts on Founder ($29) and LinkedIn on Business ($39). It generates replies for the threads it finds, and higher plans include automated DMs. All plans start with a 3-day trial.

Pick it if you want AI reply drafts across Reddit and Hacker News at a low price, and you'll edit each one before posting.

ReplyGuy

ReplyGuy finds posts on X and Reddit and drafts replies that mention your product, and its pricing page lists auto-replies on every plan. Its own FAQ says that for Reddit it uses purchased accounts it provides to you. Pro is $49 a month after a 3-day trial.

Pick it if you've weighed the risk: replies posted automatically from accounts you didn't build are what subreddit moderators remove and ban, and they can attach your brand to spam.

Monitoring Reddit for free

You can cover a lot without paying:

• F5Bot's free plan: 5 keywords across Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, by email.
• Reddit search sorted by New: search your brand in quotes and sort by new, or search inside one subreddit. Reddit search pages also have an RSS version (add .rss to the URL) for a feed reader.
• KWatch.io's free plan: 2 Reddit and 2 Hacker News keywords.

The limit of the free route is noise and time: you still read every match and decide which deserve an answer.

Monitoring Hacker News

Hacker News has a public search API run by Algolia (hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date), which returns new stories and comments for a query and is what many of these tools build on. F5Bot, KWatch.io, Syften, Octolens and SignalReply all include Hacker News; Brand24 and Awario didn't list it when we checked. For a developer tool, Hacker News threads like "Ask HN: what do you use for…" are often worth more than a dozen Reddit mentions, so make sure your tool watches both.

How to choose

Whatever you use, the reply is what counts. Answer the question in the thread, say who you are when you mention your product, and skip threads where it doesn't fit. Our guide to what DevRel is covers community work as one of its four parts.

How DevRelay does it

DevRelay doesn't monitor Reddit. Its Engage inbox listens on Hacker News, X and GitHub issues and discussions once a day, for your brand, your competitors and the problems you solve. It reads each thread, decides whether your product actually fits, and drafts a reply from your docs, with a disclosure line when it names your product. If your docs don't answer the question, there's no draft. A person approves each reply and posts it from their own account; DevRelay never posts replies.

For Reddit itself, DevRelay drafts value-first Reddit posts and Show HN submissions that follow each subreddit's rules, which you post yourself. Listening and Engage are on the DevRelay plan; the free plan lets you set up one topic and preview what it finds on Hacker News.