Mention alternatives
Mention is a media-monitoring suite sold as one Company plan: social networks, news, blogs, forums and more than 75 review sites, with sentiment, white-label reports, team roles and an account manager. People look elsewhere for three reasons: its pricing page shows no price, API access and historical data are paid add-ons, and its pricing FAQ says the Publish and Respond features are being deprecated. If review sites, news and shared reports for a team are why you use it, stay; that is what it is built for. If you want a published price, an API without an add-on, or developer communities like Hacker News, the options below cover that.
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 Mention?
Brand24
Best for: Marketing teams that want Mention’s breadth, sentiment and reports with a price on the page.
Individual $199/mo billed annually, $249 monthly; 14-day free trial · X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitch, news, blogs, reviews, newsletters, podcasts
Good
- AI sentiment, reach and reports on every plan; the closest like-for-like replacement here.
- Covers LinkedIn and podcasts, which Mention does not list.
Bad
- Individual covers 3 keywords, 2,000 mentions a month and one user, updated every 12 hours.
- API access is a $149 add-on, the same problem Mention has.
- Hacker News, Bluesky and Threads are not on its source list.
Awario
Best for: Small brands that want X, Facebook and news with an API for under $50 a month.
Starter $29/mo or $49/mo (the page pairs the two with annual and monthly billing); free trial · Reddit, Instagram, X, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and news
Good
- The lowest published entry price among the full suites, with 30,000 mentions a month on Starter.
- API, PDF and white-label reports on every plan, with no add-on fee.
Bad
- TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn and Hacker News are not named on its site.
- Sentiment appears only as a feature page, not in any plan’s feature list.
- No webhook delivery is listed on the pricing page; you poll the API.
Octolens
Best for: Developer-tool and B2B companies that need X, LinkedIn and Hacker News with relevance scoring.
Pro $159/mo billed annually; 7-day free trial · Reddit, Hacker News, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, YouTube, Stack Overflow, TikTok, DEV, app reviews; podcasts, newsletters and news on Scale
Good
- API, webhooks, Slack, MCP, relevance scoring and sentiment on every plan.
- The only tool here with both LinkedIn and Hacker News.
Bad
- Pro covers 10 keywords; news, podcasts, newsletters and the web need Scale at $499 a month.
- Facebook is not on its source list, and Threads is not listed either.
Syften
Best for: Founders whose users talk in forums, GitHub, newsletters and niche communities.
Entry $29.95/mo; Standard $49.95/mo; 14-day free trial · Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters, GitHub, Product Hunt, Stack Exchange, Bluesky, Mastodon, forums, newsletters, podcasts; X and YouTube as add-ons
Good
- The broadest community coverage on this page, with Reddit alerts within about a minute.
- AI filtering of spam and self-promotion from Standard, and archive search by plan.
Bad
- No Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn or Threads, and no sentiment analysis.
- Webhooks and MCP need the $119.95 Pro plan, and X costs $40 a month extra.
F5Bot
Best for: Anyone who only needs Reddit and Hacker News alerts by email, for free.
Free; Silver $12.99/mo, Gold $49.99/mo · Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters
Good
- Genuinely free, with instant, batched or daily-digest alerts.
- AI filtering in plain language on Gold, and Lobsters, which few others watch.
Bad
- Three sites only: no X, Facebook, news, review sites or any video platform.
- API access and webhooks start at its Platinum tier, $214.99 a month; below Gold, alerts are email.
- No sentiment or reports; it is an alert, not a listening tool.
TrueScrape
Best for: Founders and developers who want a feed or webhook of new mentions, paid per check instead of per seat or 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 with unread counts. 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 platform that fails or returns nothing costs nothing, and nothing is charged per mention.
Bad
- No sentiment, reports, review sites or news: it lists new mentions and nothing more.
- No X, LinkedIn or Facebook. The source list grows where logged-out access exists, but X and LinkedIn are not coming, because both need a login.
- Instagram and TikTok are watched by hashtag only, and checks run every 6 hours by default, hourly at the fastest.
How do the Mention alternatives compare?
| Option | Entry price | X/Twitter | Facebook and news | Sentiment | Hacker News | TikTok | API and webhooks | Free tier | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand24 | $199/mo, billed annually | Yes | Yes | Both | Yes | Yes | Not listed | Yes | API as a $149 add-on | 14-day trial |
| Awario | $29/mo or $49/mo | Yes | Not listed | Both | Feature page only | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | API on every plan | Free trial, no card |
| Octolens | $159/mo, billed annually | Yes | Yes | News from Scale; no Facebook | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | API, webhooks and MCP on every plan | 7-day trial |
| Syften | $29.95/mo | $40/mo add-on | No | Neither | No | Yes | Yes | No | API on all plans; webhooks on Pro | 14-day trial |
| F5Bot | Free | No | No | Neither | No | Yes | Yes | No | From Platinum ($214.99/mo) | Free plan, email alerts |
| TrueScrape | Pay per check, no plan | No | No | Neither | No | Yes | Yes | By hashtag | API, signed webhooks and MCP | Free checker; 1,000 credits on signup |
Questions people actually ask
- Why are people leaving Mention?
- Mention’s pricing page shows no price, so cost cannot be compared before a sales conversation or trial. API access and historical data are paid add-ons on top of its Company plan, and its pricing FAQ says the Publish and Respond features are being deprecated, pointing users to Agorapulse. Teams that rely on its review-site, news and reporting coverage still have good reason to stay.
- What is the cheapest Mention alternative?
- F5Bot is free but watches only Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Among full suites, Awario Starter is $29 or $49 a month and covers X, Facebook and news with an API. Syften Entry is $29.95 a month for communities. TrueScrape charges 1 credit per platform per check with no plan, so a quiet term costs little, but it has no sentiment, X or news.
- Which Mention alternative includes an API without an add-on?
- Awario includes an API on every plan, Octolens includes API, webhooks and MCP on every plan, and Syften includes an API on every plan with webhooks on Pro. Brand24 charges $149 for API access, like Mention’s add-on. TrueScrape is an API first: monitors, a feed and signed webhooks on the same key as every other endpoint.
- Which alternative covers X and LinkedIn?
- Brand24 and Octolens list both. Awario lists X but not LinkedIn, and Syften sells X as a $40 a month add-on. F5Bot and TrueScrape cover neither; TrueScrape reads only what a logged-out visitor can see, and both X and LinkedIn need a login.
- Which one is quickest to start, 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 unread counts, no seats and no plan. For a developer, one POST /v1/monitors with an optional webhook_url sends signed webhooks for new posts only, with MCP tools for agents. Docs are at /docs/monitors, and the overview is at /mention-monitoring.
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.