How to Scrape Hacker News in 2026: Stories, Comments, Ask HN via API

Hacker News is one of the highest signal-to-noise communities on the internet. Started by Y Combinator in 2007, it's the default gathering place for founders, engineers, investors, and researchers who shape the tech industry. When a new framework gains traction, a startup gets acquired, or a security vulnerability drops — the discussion happens on HN first, often days before mainstream coverage. That makes HN data genuinely valuable. Recruiters mine "Who's Hiring" threads. VCs track what technical audiences are excited about. Researchers study developer sentiment. Content marketers identify trending topics. And founders validate ideas by watching what the community upvotes. In this guide, I'll walk through every mode of the Hacker News Scraper on Apify — top stories, newest, Ask HN, Show HN, jobs, and full-text search — with Python code for each. Plus how to extract comment trees and user profiles at scale. Why Hacker News Data Is Valuable HN isn't just another tech forum. The communit