Hacker News threads surface early adopters, technical buyers, and founders comparing tools in public. Needle includes HN in the same search as Reddit and Stack Overflow - ranked by intent - so launch prep and daily discovery share one workflow.
Search how people describe your category on HN and Reddit - adjust headline and first comment from real language.
“What do you use for…” and “how do you handle…” posts are high-intent if you show up with specifics.
On paid plans, Auto Search re-runs for your brand on a schedule with optional digests.
| Approach | Best for | Intent | Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual HN search | One-off checks | Manual | Yes |
| F5Bot | HN keyword alerts | No | Yes |
| Needle | HN + Reddit + SO together | Yes | Preview + Trending |
Preview from your URL, then search communities with buying intent on paid plans.