F5Bot alternatives
F5Bot emails you when a keyword appears on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters, and its free tier covers 5 keywords. If that is all you need, keep using it. People move on when they need other platforms, because F5Bot watches only those three, or when they want alerts in code: API access and webhooks start at its Platinum tier, $214.99 a month.
Prices read from each vendor’s own pages on 2026-11-01. Pricing moves. Check before you rely on it.
What are the alternatives to F5Bot?
Syften
Best for: Founders and DevRel teams watching developer communities, forums and newsletters beyond Reddit.
Entry $29.95/mo; Standard $49.95/mo; 14-day free trial · Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters, GitHub, Product Hunt, Stack Exchange, Dev.to, Bluesky, Mastodon, forums, newsletters, podcasts; X and YouTube as add-ons
Good
- The broadest community coverage on this page, including Lobsters, Mastodon and Stack Exchange.
- AI filtering from the Standard plan removes spam and self-promotion.
Bad
- X and YouTube are paid add-ons at $40 and $20 a month on top of Standard or Pro.
- Webhooks and MCP need the $119.95 Pro plan; Entry allows only 3 community filters.
- No Instagram, TikTok, Threads or LinkedIn on its source list.
Octolens
Best for: Developer-tool companies that need X and LinkedIn alongside Reddit and Hacker News.
Pro $159/mo billed annually; 7-day free trial · Reddit, Hacker News, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, YouTube, Stack Overflow, TikTok, DEV, podcasts, newsletters, news
Good
- Covers X and LinkedIn, which most tools on this page cannot.
- API, webhooks, Slack, MCP, relevance scoring and sentiment on every plan.
Bad
- The cheapest plan is $159 a month billed annually, more than ten times F5Bot Silver.
- Pro covers 10 keywords; each extra keyword is $10.
ForumScout
Best for: Teams that want mentions pushed into Google Sheets or a webhook with no code.
No price in the text of its pricing section; 7-day free trial · Reddit, Hacker News, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, forums, news
Good
- Webhooks, Zapier or Make, and a Google Sheets export for mentions.
- Sentiment tracking over time.
Bad
- Its pricing section names plans by retention (3, 6 and 12 months) without a price in the page text, so you cannot compare cost before signing up.
- Keyword limits are not stated on the page.
Brand24
Best for: Marketing teams that need sentiment, reach and reports across social media and news.
Individual $199/mo billed annually, $249 monthly; 14-day free trial · X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, news, blogs, forums, reviews, podcasts
Good
- AI sentiment, reach and automated reports on every plan.
- Covers news, blogs, reviews and podcasts as well as social media.
Bad
- Individual covers 3 keywords for $199 a month or more, a large step up from F5Bot.
- API access is a $149 add-on, and webhooks are not mentioned on the pricing page.
- Hacker News is not on its source list.
TrueScrape
Best for: Founders and developers who want Reddit and Hacker News plus TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and YouTube, paid per check with no plan.
1 credit per platform per check; credits from $25 one-time for 20,000, 1,000 free on signup · Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, YouTube, Threads, Instagram hashtags, TikTok hashtags
Good
- Founders: type a brand into the free checker with no account, then one click on Watch this term opens a dashboard feed. No seats and no plan.
- Developers: one POST /v1/monitors with an optional webhook_url; signed webhooks carry only new posts, on the same API key and credits as every other endpoint.
- MCP tools to create monitors and read mentions from an agent; the docs are at /docs/monitors.
- A check where a platform fails costs nothing for that platform, and nothing is charged per mention.
Bad
- No X or LinkedIn: it reads only what a logged-out visitor can see, and neither allows logged-out search.
- Instagram and TikTok are watched by hashtag only, not by text anywhere in a post.
- No sentiment, no email alerts and no Lobsters; new mentions go to a dashboard feed, a webhook or the API.
How do the F5Bot alternatives compare?
| Option | Entry price | Reddit and Hacker News | TikTok and Instagram | X and LinkedIn | Alerts in code | Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syften | $29.95/mo | Both, plus Lobsters | Neither | X as a $40/mo add-on; no LinkedIn | API on all plans; webhooks on Pro ($119.95) | Not listed; AI filtering instead |
| Octolens | $159/mo, billed annually | Both | TikTok; Instagram not listed | Both | API, webhooks and MCP on every plan | Yes |
| ForumScout | Not shown in page text | Both | Instagram; TikTok not listed | Both | Webhooks, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets | Yes |
| Brand24 | $199/mo, billed annually | Reddit; Hacker News not listed | Both | Both | API as a $149 add-on | Yes |
| TrueScrape | Pay per check, no plan | Both | Both, by hashtag | Neither | API, signed webhooks and MCP | No |
Questions people actually ask
- Is there a free F5Bot alternative?
- Not one that does the same job for free. Syften, Octolens and Brand24 offer free trials of 7 to 14 days. TrueScrape has a free brand mentions checker with no account, limited to 3 checks a day, and a paid monitor charges 1 credit per platform per check from a one-time credit pack.
- Which F5Bot alternative covers TikTok and Instagram?
- Brand24 lists both. Octolens lists TikTok and ForumScout lists Instagram. TrueScrape watches both, by hashtag only. Syften lists neither. If X or LinkedIn matter more, Octolens, ForumScout and Brand24 cover them and TrueScrape does not.
- Which one is quickest to set up, for a founder or a developer?
- For a founder, TrueScrape: type a brand into the free checker at /tools/brand-mentions with no account, then click Watch this term for a dashboard feed with no seats or plan. For a developer, one POST /v1/monitors with an optional webhook_url sends signed webhooks for new posts only, on the same API key and credits as every other endpoint, and MCP tools expose the same monitors to agents. Docs are at /docs/monitors.
- Does F5Bot have an API or webhooks?
- Yes, from its Platinum tier at $214.99 a month, which allows 300 keywords. Gold, at $49.99, adds RSS and JSON feeds and Slack or Discord alerts but not the API.
How do you see who mentions your brand right now?
The free brand mention checker shows recent mentions with no account. Brand mention monitoring covers what a watched term costs, and how to track brand mentions without a subscription compares the paid tools.
The free grant is 1,000 credits and needs no card. It is sized to answer whether the data is good enough, which is the only question worth resolving before you commit.