Best Hacker News Scrapers in 2026: Free API vs Paid Apify Actors

Finding the right Hacker News scraper can save you hours of manual data collection. Whether you're tracking startup trends, monitoring tech discussions, or building a news aggregator, here's a practical comparison of the best options in 2026. 1. Free Scraping API (frog03) The simplest way to get started — no signup required: curl "https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/hn?q=startup&limit=10&api_key=demo-key-2026" Returns clean JSON with title, URL, score, author, and timestamp. Supports query filtering and pagination. Pros: Free tier with demo key No authentication setup JSON response, ready to parse Filters by keyword, date range, score Cons: Rate limited on demo key (100 req/day) Best for prototyping and small projects const response = await fetch ( ' https://frog03-20494.wykr.es/api/v1/hn?q=AI&limit=5&api_key=demo-key-2026 ' ); const data = await response . json (); data . items . forEach ( item => { console . log ( ` ${ item . title } ( ${ item . score } points)` ); }); 2. HN Algolia