figures verified 2026-09-10

discatch vs Google Alerts

Free email alerts when Google indexes a new page matching your terms. The reference for what people expect from monitoring.

Feature	discatchthe plan	Google Alertsas 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	no
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 Google Alerts is

Free, for everyone, by email. The backstop.

Pricing: Free. No paid plans, no API, no webhooks.
Sources: Whatever Google indexes, delivered by email or RSS. Source categories on the setup page: Automatic, News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions, and Finance. Reddit is not a named source; coverage depends on what Google crawls and indexes. Most Reddit comments do not get indexed. Hacker News stories appear; comments are sparse. Discourse forum threads, GitHub issues, and Bluesky posts do not appear.
Agent surface: None. No API, no webhooks, no llms.txt, no MCP server.
Push: Email or RSS. No webhook, no API, no agent destination.

Where Google Alerts wins today

Free and universal. Zero setup beyond a search term and a Google account.
The reference point everyone compares to. Every monitoring tool defines itself against Google Alerts.
No limit on the number of alerts. No credit card. Works in every language Google indexes.

Where discatch differs

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

An API. Google Alerts has no way for a program to read it beyond RSS. No JSON, no webhook, no event log.
Sources beyond the web index: Hacker News stories and comments through its official search API, Discourse forums through their public JSON APIs, GitHub issues and discussions, Stack Exchange questions, with Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt planned.
Push to an agent. Google Alerts sends email or RSS; discatch sends a webhook, a Claude Code command, a Doozy todo, or a GitHub dispatch.
Speed. Google Alerts depends on Google’s crawl schedule. discatch’s catches fire at the interval you set.
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.

What Google Alerts does and does not index

Source	Google Alerts	discatch
Web pages	yes	yes (waterfall)
News	yes	yes (waterfall)
Reddit post titles	yes, with lag	yes (web index today, direct planned)
Reddit comments	mostly no	yes (web index today, direct planned)
Hacker News stories	yes, with lag	yes (official API)
Hacker News comments	sparse	yes (official API)
Discourse forums	no	yes (official API)
GitHub issues	no	yes (official API)
Stack Exchange	partial	yes (official API)
Bluesky	no	planned
Mastodon	no	planned

Coverage comparison on 2026-09-10.

Source by source

Google Alerts sources are Automatic, News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions, and Finance. It does not have per-source pages or a source list. Coverage depends entirely on what Google’s crawler reaches and indexes.

discatch has dedicated sources reached through their official APIs (Hacker News, Discourse, GitHub, Stack Exchange) or through the waterfall (web, news). The difference is coverage of comments, forums, and developer sources that Google indexes late or not at all.

For an agent

Google Alerts has no agent surface. No API, no webhooks, no MCP, no llms.txt. The only programmatic access is parsing email or polling RSS. discatch’s REST API and trial keys work today. Catches push to a webhook, a command, or a todo.

The Reddit gap

You can set up a Google Alert for site:reddit.com and your brand name. It will catch some post titles that Google indexes. It will miss most comments, and delivery lags by hours or days. Two editorial pages exist for this query: one by RedShip (2026-03-14) and one by ChatterSift (2026-05-17). Both reach the same conclusion: Google Alerts does not work for Reddit monitoring.

discatch reaches Reddit through the web index today, which covers what web crawlers can see. A direct Reddit source is reserved until a cleared path exists. Free Reddit alerts are planned.

Questions

Is discatch free like Google Alerts?

Free to start: a daily unit allowance on free sources, free Hacker News alerts at one hour or slower, and a small allowance on waterfall sources so the difference is visible. Paid units past that.

Can a script read Google Alerts?

Only through RSS feeds. discatch has a REST API, a signed webhook, and a per-account event log an agent reads from a cursor.

Does Google Alerts cover Reddit?

Only what Google indexes. Post titles get indexed; most comments do not. Delivery lags by hours or days. discatch reaches Reddit through the web index today and plans a direct source when a cleared path exists.

Does Google Alerts cover Hacker News?

Only what Google indexes. Hacker News stories appear; comments are sparse. discatch reads Hacker News through its official search API today with coverage of stories and comments.

Can Google Alerts push to an agent?

No. Google Alerts delivers by email or RSS only. There is no API, no webhook, and no way for a program to receive alerts without parsing email or polling an RSS feed.

Should I keep Google Alerts if I use discatch?

Yes, as a backstop. Google Alerts catches what Google indexes, which includes pages that no listening tool has a source for. Run both; the free tiers cost nothing.

What does Google Alerts miss?

Comments on forums, posts on Bluesky and Mastodon, GitHub issues and discussions, Stack Overflow questions, Discourse threads, and Reddit comments. Anything Google does not index or indexes late.

Is there an API for Google Alerts?

No. Google has never shipped a public API for Alerts. Third-party tools scrape the email or RSS output. discatch has a REST API on every plan.

How fast is Google Alerts?

Google Alerts offers three frequencies: as-it-happens, at most once a day, and at most once a week. Even "as-it-happens" lags by hours for most queries because it depends on Google’s crawl schedule. discatch’s free tier fires at one hour or slower; paid catches fire at 15 minutes or 5 minutes.

What sources does Google Alerts offer?

Automatic, News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions, and Finance. These are Google’s own index categories, not dedicated source integrations. If Google has not crawled a page, the alert does not fire.

Try it yourself

The fairest comparison is a quote for your own query against what Google Alerts 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. Google Alerts facts read on 2026-09-10. Research: docs/seo/competitor-map.md.