Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Hacker News VS Hacker News Search

Compare Hacker News VS Hacker News Search and see what are their differences

Hacker News logo Hacker News

Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator.

Hacker News Search logo Hacker News Search

a faster hnsearch
  • Hacker News Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23
  • Hacker News Search Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-25

Hacker News features and specs

  • Quality Content
    Hacker News focuses on high-quality, tech-centric content which is often insightful and valuable for those in the tech industry.
  • Community
    The community consists largely of professionals and enthusiasts in tech, providing a knowledgeable and skilled user base for discussions.
  • Upvote System
    The upvote system helps in promoting the most relevant and useful posts, ensuring users see content that is often vetted by the community.
  • Minimalist Design
    The simple, text-based design minimizes distractions and focuses on content and discussions without unnecessary clutter.
  • Diverse Topics
    While mainly focused on technology, Hacker News also covers a variety of subjects including entrepreneurship, science, and more.

Possible disadvantages of Hacker News

  • Echo Chamber Effect
    Given its focused and like-minded community, there is a risk of homogeneous opinions and lack of diverse viewpoints.
  • Moderation Issues
    The manual moderation can sometimes be inconsistent, leading to frustrations around which posts or comments get removed or promoted.
  • Signal-to-Noise Ratio
    Despite the upvote system, some low-quality or irrelevant content can still surface, diluting the overall information quality.
  • Niche Audience
    Its strong focus on tech topics can alienate those who are not as tech-savvy or interested, limiting broader appeal.
  • Limited Features
    The platform offers very basic functionality compared to other modern forums, which might deter users who prefer more advanced features.

Hacker News Search features and specs

  • Comprehensive Search Capabilities
    Hacker News Search powered by Algolia provides robust and accurate search results, making it easy to find relevant posts and comments quickly.
  • Advanced Filtering Options
    Users can filter search results by date, points, and other criteria, allowing for highly customized and precise searches.
  • Highlighting Feature
    Search terms are highlighted within the results, making it easier to identify relevant information at a glance.
  • Fast Performance
    The search engine is optimized for speed, ensuring that results are returned rapidly, even for complex queries.
  • User-friendly Interface
    The interface is clean, intuitive, and easy to navigate, which enhances the overall user experience.
  • Historical Data Access
    The service includes access to historical data, enabling users to search through older posts and comments.
  • Open Source
    The codebase for the search engine is open source, encouraging community contributions and transparency.

Possible disadvantages of Hacker News Search

  • Limited to Hacker News
    The search service is specifically for Hacker News and doesn't support searching other platforms or forums.
  • Dependence on Algolia
    The functionality of the search engine depends on Algolia's service, making it susceptible to external limitations or changes in the API.
  • No Real-time Updates
    Search results may not include the very latest posts or comments as the indexing may not be in real time.
  • Potential Privacy Concerns
    As with any third-party search service, there may be concerns about how data is stored and managed.
  • Occasional Inaccuracy
    While generally reliable, there can be occasional inaccuracies in search results, such as missing or outdated entries.
  • Overwhelming for Novices
    The advanced options and technical aspects of filtering might be overwhelming for users who are not tech-savvy.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Hacker News and Hacker News Search)
Social Networks
100 100%
0% 0
Search Engine
0 0%
100% 100
Social News
100 100%
0% 0
Web Search
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Hacker News and Hacker News Search

Hacker News Reviews

Best Forums for Developers to Join in 2025
Hacker News is a great place to learn how to code. You'll find many interesting articles about new projects in the open-source community. You can also see what's happening with your favorite programming language or framework daily.
Source: www.notchup.com
Make sure to list your SaaS on these marketplaces to get users
I would highly recommend if you have a SaaS, try to list it here as news this will surely get a good amount of traffic to your SaaS. Hacker News is simple and is maintained by Ycombinator which is a gold mine for startups to get started.
Source: medium.com
15 Best Reddit Alternatives in 2024: Find Your New Online Community
Hacker News, run by Y Combinator, is a popular platform for technology enthusiasts and entrepreneurs.
Great Products for Finding Startup Jobs
Hacker News—Not a job board, per se, but the HN Who’s Hiring post at the start of every month has dozens of engineering-focused job posts. HN also regularly pushes select YC jobs to the front page.
Source: medium.com
18 Best Sites for Finding a Startup Job
Hacker News has a job board that lists jobs exclusively at various startups. Obviously, as Hackers News is associated with Y Combinator, most of the listed startup jobs are at companies that have gone through the accelerator’s program.
Source: tech.co

Hacker News Search Reviews

We have no reviews of Hacker News Search yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Hacker News Search should be more popular than Hacker News. It has been mentiond 2317 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Hacker News mentions (611)

  • Tell HN: \/active and showdead might lead to a more informative HN experience
    If you go on https://news.ycombinator.com/active instead of the default https://news.ycombinator.com page, the results are very different. In my experience, much more interesting content. Here is a quick list of submissions that are currently on the top 10 of /active that are not on the default front page at all. [“Most promising signs yet” of alien life on a planet beyond our Solar... - Source: Hacker News / 13 days ago
  • Unveiling MongoDB SSPL 1.0: A Deep Dive into Open Source Fairness and Innovation
    In the coming years, expect more community-led projects to adopt innovative funding models that complement licenses like MongoDB SSPL 1.0. By harnessing platforms such as GitHub Sponsors and new initiatives discussed on Hacker News, the open source community may:. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Elastic License: A Comprehensive Exploration of Fair Code Licensing and Open Source Sustainability
    This post offers an in-depth exploration of the Elastic License, an innovative model that bridges the gap between open collaboration and fair compensation for developers. We review its background, core concepts, real-world applications, challenges, and its future outlook in the evolving ecosystem of open source and fair code licenses. Drawing insights from the Original Article and other authoritative sources such... - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Unveiling Common Public Attribution License 1.0: A Comprehensive Overview and Future Trends
    Discussions on forums such as Stack Overflow Q&A and Hacker News provide ample examples where the lack of integrated compensation mechanisms has led to disputes or legal ambiguities. In such contexts, additional measures—like supplementary contributor license agreements (CLAs) or blockchain-based logging—are often recommended to address enforcement challenges. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Save search results to a text file
    I open https://news.ycombinator.com/ in my android phone. On this page, at the bottom there is a text box for input search. How do I capy and paste the search result to a text file with URLs, because on the search result page, I can't select all as we can do on the PC or is there any way to save the result. - Source: Hacker News / 23 days ago
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Hacker News Search mentions (2317)

  • Firefox tab groups are here
    > Wow, this is a fantastic feature that was heavily requested, and HN cannot stop being negative. You’re just experiencing (and by commenting on it, being part of) the contrarian dynamic. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22contrarian%20dynamic%22&sort=byDate&type=comment. - Source: Hacker News / about 23 hours ago
  • Show HN: I build a Fantasy NHL app in 3 days with Claude AI
    What's going on with the timestamps here? I remember this exact post from days ago, and it shows up on algolia as 3 days ago with 6 comments, but the OP timestamp now shows as 4 hours ago with comments as recent as 26 minutes. It looks like a re-post with modified timestamps.... - Source: Hacker News / 4 days ago
  • It's School time Adventures in hacking an old kindle
    Last week I xkbcd#1053'd (aka lucky 10,000'd) https://chargie.org thanks to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43766728#43767575) >an interposing dongle which provides a Bluetooth receiver and app that lets you set arbitrary preferences on your phone and fast charge, slow charge, or turn off the charger at configurable state of charge setpoints or times Another option I learned about just now for... - Source: Hacker News / 2 days ago
  • Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas
    I thought I remembered seeing the moldbug blog pop up on HN a ways in the past, but it doesn't appear to have gotten much traction in the past (and moldbug never really got much traction via comments either): https://hn.algolia.com/?q=unqualified+reservations https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=moldbug&sort=byPopularity&type=story. - Source: Hacker News / 1 day ago
  • Congress Passes Take IT Down Act Despite Major Flaws
    I believe what EFF and Mike Masnick have to say about it: it's the most forseeably abusable internet censorship law (so far), and it's a crying shame HN isn't confident enough to look past the good intention of it to recognize that. How have DMCA takedowns gone? How many perfectly innocent, upstanding developers have been nuked, without recourse, by some invalid or malevolent false report? How many times... - Source: Hacker News / 1 day ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Hacker News and Hacker News Search, you can also consider the following products

Reddit - Reddit gives you the best of the internet in one place. Get a constantly updating feed of breaking news, fun stories, pics, memes, and videos just for you.

DuckDuckGo - The Internet privacy company that empowers you to seamlessly take control of your personal information online, without any tradeoffs.

License-Token.com - Monetize your source code while still keeping it open.

Medium - Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

Lobsters - Lobsters is a technology-focused link-aggregation site.

hckr news - An unofficial, alternative interface to Hacker News