figures verified 2026-09-10

discatch vs F5Bot

Free Reddit and Hacker News keyword alerts by email since 2017, with paid tiers up to $214.99/mo for API and webhooks. 430,000 alerts a day across three sources.

Feature	discatchthe plan	F5Botas of 2026-09-10
Built for agents first(partial: an MCP server exists but the product is dashboard-first)	yes	no
MCP server	planned	no
REST API and webhooks	yes	$214.99/mo
Push that wakes an agent(calls your agent when a catch fires, instead of waiting to be polled)	yes	no
Waterfall coverage(several providers per source, cheapest first, merged)	yes	no
Pay per unit	yes	no
Query-time price quote	yes	no
Discourse forums	yes	no
Relevance judged by your model(raw candidates plus a prescore by default)	yes	no
Never posts for you	yes	yes
Open playbooks(copyable scripts that plug into the API, published under MIT)	yes	no
Entry price	free, then units	free

What F5Bot is

Free, simple, email-first. Built by Lewis Van Winkle (codeplea.com). "Know the moment you’re mentioned online."

Pricing: Free: 5 keywords, 10 alerts per keyword per day, 20 total daily alerts, within 2 hours. Ads in emails.; Silver $9.99/mo or $109/yr: 20 keywords, 30 per keyword, 100 daily, within 5 minutes. Ad-free, keyword filtering.; Gold $49.99/mo or $549/yr: 200 keywords, 100 per keyword, 5,000 daily, instant. RSS/JSON feeds, 1 Slack/Discord, AI filtering with first $10/mo of tokens included.; Platinum $214.99/mo or $2,364/yr: 300 keywords, 500 per keyword, 200,000 daily, instant. 3 Slack/Discord, 5 AI filters, API and webhooks.; Diamond from $500/mo: custom.
Sources: Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobste.rs. Three sources, no more. No per-source pages beyond a one-paragraph list.
Agent surface: Email by default. A REST API with webhooks on the Platinum tier at $214.99/mo. No MCP, no llms.txt, no OpenAPI spec. The /api URL redirects to the login page.
Push: Email on all tiers. A webhook on the Platinum tier. Not a command that wakes an agent.

Where F5Bot wins today

Free, reliable, and exactly what a solo developer needs for Reddit and Hacker News.
430,000 alerts a day across three sources. Nine years of operation since 2017.
Logo wall: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, IBM, Oracle, GitHub, Spotify, Shopify, Cloudflare, Stanford, MIT. Inferred from signup email domains.
A 28-question FAQ at /faq that answers limits, cadence, scoping, regex, Slack, Discord, RSS, JSON feeds, bulk upload, and cancellation.
Annual pricing on every paid tier: Silver $109/yr, Gold $549/yr, Platinum $2,364/yr.

Where discatch differs

These are the plan. The roadmap says which phase each lands in.

More sources: web, news, Discourse forums, Stack Exchange, GitHub today, more planned.
A JSON API and an event log an agent reads from a cursor, not only email.
Push that wakes an agent. A catch calls your webhook, a Claude Code or Codex command, a Doozy todo, or a GitHub dispatch. Nothing to poll.
A quote before every call. The quote is a ceiling with locked unit prices; the charge never exceeds it.
Units instead of seats. Search, capture, result, alert, classify. An agent can buy one search with no subscription.
Sources reached through a waterfall of providers, cheapest and most accurate first. You see sources, never providers.
Relevance is your model’s job by default. Every result carries a free prescore; the classify flag is opt-in and priced.
API and webhooks without a $214.99/mo tier. discatch includes them on every plan.

F5Bot pricing, dated

	Free	Silver	Gold	Platinum
Monthly	$0	$9.99	$49.99	$214.99
Annual	$0	$109/yr	$549/yr	$2,364/yr
Keywords	5	20	200	300
Daily cap per keyword	10	30	100	500
Daily alerts	20	100	5,000	200,000
Speed	within 2 h	within 5 min	instant	instant
API and webhooks	no	no	no	yes
AI filtering	no	no	yes ($10/mo tokens)	yes (5 filters)
Slack/Discord	no	no	1	3

Prices read from f5bot.com/tiers on 2026-09-10. Diamond from $500/mo is custom.

Source by source

F5Bot covers exactly three sources: Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobste.rs. It has one 638-word guide for Hacker News and nothing for Lobste.rs. No pages for any other source.

discatch covers web, news, Hacker News, Discourse forums, Stack Exchange, and GitHub today. Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt are planned. Reddit, X, and LinkedIn are reserved until a cleared path exists. The free tier includes Hacker News alerts at one hour or slower.

For an agent

F5Bot has no agent surfaces. No MCP server, no llms.txt, no OpenAPI spec, no JSON-LD on any page. The API and webhooks are on the Platinum tier at $214.99/mo. The API docs are 4 flat pages with endpoints for get-alerts, create-alert, update-alert, delete-alert. Webhooks POST per alert with retries at immediate, 5 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours, auto-disabled after 50 failures in 12 hours.

discatch’s REST API and trial keys work today on every plan, including the free tier. The MCP server with OAuth is planned for phase 3. Catches push to a webhook, a command, or a todo.

What F5Bot does not have

No MCP server, no llms.txt, no OpenAPI spec.
No JSON-LD on any page. No meta descriptions on money pages. No H1 on the pricing page.
Three sources only. No per-source pages beyond a one-paragraph list.
No comparison or alternative pages. Eight rivals own "f5bot alternative."
No dates or authors on any guide. The sitemap has no lastmod.
API and webhooks are only on Platinum at $214.99/mo.
AI filtering is metered per token on top of the plan fee, while competitors bundle it.
Free tier latency is "within 2 hours" with a cap of 20 alerts per day.

Syften’s F5Bot alternative page quotes non-existent "Power, Ultra, and Enterprise tiers" and has no "verified on" date. SnitchFeed’s compare page quotes the correct tiers. If you are comparing tools, check the dates.

Questions

Is discatch’s free tier the same as F5Bot?

Similar in spirit: free Hacker News alerts at one hour or slower, and free Reddit alerts once a cleared path exists. discatch adds a JSON API and an event log on top.

Does discatch use F5Bot under the hood?

No. F5Bot’s terms require a separately negotiated written contract for resale or redistribution. discatch reaches Hacker News through its official search API and reproduces the free-alert idea itself.

How much does F5Bot’s API cost?

API and webhooks are on the Platinum tier at $214.99/mo or $2,364/yr. discatch includes the API and webhooks on every plan, including the free tier.

Does F5Bot have an MCP server?

No. F5Bot has no MCP server, no llms.txt, no OpenAPI spec, and no JSON-LD on any page. The site does not mention MCP or agents anywhere.

How fast is F5Bot’s free tier?

Within 2 hours, with a cap of 20 alerts per day. Silver ($9.99/mo) is within 5 minutes. Gold and above are instant. discatch’s free tier fires at one hour or slower.

Does F5Bot cover Discourse or GitHub?

No. F5Bot covers exactly three sources: Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobste.rs. discatch covers web, news, Hacker News, Discourse forums, Stack Exchange, and GitHub today.

Are F5Bot’s guides dated?

No. None of the 10 guides carry a publish date, author name, or meta description. The sitemap has no lastmod. One guide (reddit-search-api) is not in the sitemap.

Does Syften’s F5Bot page cite the right tiers?

No. Syften’s /f5bot-alternative page names "Power, Ultra, and Enterprise tiers" that do not exist on 2026-09-10. F5Bot’s tiers are Free, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond.

How does F5Bot handle AI filtering?

AI filtering is available on Gold ($49.99/mo) and above. It is metered per token: Gold includes the first $10/mo of token usage. Platinum includes 5 AI filters. discatch’s prescore is free on every result; the classify flag is a per-unit surcharge.

What is F5Bot’s 28-question FAQ?

F5Bot’s /faq page covers limits, cadence, subreddit scoping, comments vs posts, regex, wildcards, Slack, Discord, RSS, JSON feeds, bulk upload, and cancellation. It has no FAQPage schema. discatch’s FAQ pages use FAQPage schema for snippet eligibility.

Try it yourself

The fairest comparison is a quote for your own query against what F5Bot costs you. A quote is free and needs no key.

curl

curl -X POST https://api.discatch.com/v1/quote -d '{ "query": "\"your product\"", "sources": ["hackernews", "discourse", "web"], "since": "7d" }'

MCP · coming in phase 3

{
  "tool": "quote",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "\"your product\"",
    "sources": [
      "hackernews",
      "discourse",
      "web"
    ],
    "since": "7d"
  }
}

Last reviewed 2026-09-10 by Parsa Khazaeepoul, founder, dcouple. F5Bot facts read on 2026-09-10 from f5bot.com/tiers, f5bot.com/docs-api, f5bot.com/guides. Research: docs/seo/competitor-map.md.