figures verified 2026-09-10

discatch vs Syften

Keyword alerts across developer and community sources since 2019, including Discourse, Mastodon, Indie Hackers, and Lobste.rs, with a hosted MCP server on the PRO tier that the docs say does not push.

Feature	discatchthe plan	Syftenas of 2026-09-10
Built for agents first(partial: an MCP server exists but the product is dashboard-first)	yes	partial
MCP server	planned	PRO only
REST API and webhooks	yes	PRO only
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	yes
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	$29.95/mo

What Syften is

Priced by filter count for indie developers and small teams. Bootstrapped, one founder (Michał Mazurek, Kraków), operating since 2019.

Pricing: Entry $29.95/mo: 3 community filters, 100 results a day, 7-day archive, no API.; Standard $49.95/mo: 20 community filters, 200 results a day, 1-month archive, Slack, AI filtering, API. X and YouTube are paid add-ons.; PRO $119.95/mo: 100 community filters, 500 results a day, unlimited archive, Slack, AI filtering, API, webhooks, MCP. X and YouTube add-ons.; No annual pricing on 2026-09-10.; Trial: 14 days, no card, shows last 60 days of mentions immediately.
Sources: Reddit, Hacker News, X (add-on), Bluesky, Mastodon, Indie Hackers, Slack communities, Discourse and other forums, Stack Overflow and Exchange, YouTube (add-on), GitHub, Lobste.rs, Dev.to, Product Hunt, Steemit, podcasts, newsletters, public web. Does not monitor LinkedIn or Facebook.
Agent surface: Hosted MCP at syften.com/mcp, Streamable HTTP, API-key auth, PRO only ($119.95/mo), 8 tools. Their docs state plainly: "the MCP server responds when an agent calls a tool; it does not push new mentions." llms.txt exists. No llms-full.txt, no OpenAPI, no .well-known/mcp.json, no registry listing on 2026-09-10.
Push: Webhooks to a URL on the PRO tier. Not a command that wakes an agent. MCP does not push.

Where Syften wins today

The closest source list to discatch’s, including Discourse, Mastodon, Indie Hackers, Lobste.rs, Dev.to, and Product Hunt, all shipped today.
Honest documentation about what MCP can and cannot do. The MCP page says "the MCP server responds when an agent calls a tool; it does not push new mentions."
A low entry price and a 14-day trial that shows 60 days of mentions immediately.
A dated changelog (11 entries, most recent 2026-06-19) and a trust strip: "Operating since 2019, 177 commits in last 30 days, last release 13 hours ago."
Testimonials from James Hawkins (PostHog), Jacob Eiting (RevenueCat), Arvid Kahl, and Rob Fitzpatrick.

Where discatch differs

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

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.
No per-keyword pricing. Syften’s tiers step up with filter count; discatch catches are not priced per keyword.
MCP is not tier-gated here. When it ships, every account gets it.
OAuth instead of an API key. When the MCP server ships, it uses OAuth.

Syften pricing, dated

	Entry	Standard	PRO
Monthly	$29.95	$49.95	$119.95
Annual	none	none	none
Community filters	3	20	100
Results per day	100	200	500
Web filters	1	5	20
Archive	7 days	1 month	unlimited
API	no	yes	yes
Webhooks	no	no	yes
MCP	no	no	yes
X and YouTube	no	add-on	add-on

Prices read from syften.com/#pricing on 2026-09-10.

Source by source

Syften has the widest source list of any indie tool in the category: Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, Mastodon, Indie Hackers, Lobste.rs, Slack communities, Discourse, Stack Exchange, GitHub, Dev.to, Product Hunt, Steemit, podcasts, newsletters, and the public web. X and YouTube are paid add-ons. It does not cover LinkedIn or Facebook.

discatch covers web, news, Hacker News, Discourse forums, Stack Exchange, and GitHub today. Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt are planned. Syften’s breadth is wider today. discatch’s angle is per-forum Discourse watching, push to an agent, and per-unit pricing.

For an agent

Syften ranks #1 for "MCP social listening" with its /mcp-social-listening page. The server has 8 tools, uses API-key auth, and is PRO-only at $119.95/mo. The page is honest: "the MCP server responds when an agent calls a tool; it does not push new mentions." Agent safety boundaries are explicit: the agent cannot change billing or post.

Syften ships llms.txt with an "Important limits" section stating what it does not cover. No llms-full.txt, no OpenAPI spec, no .well-known/mcp.json, and no MCP registry listing on 2026-09-10. Docs are a single 243 KB page at /documentation.

discatch’s REST API and trial keys work today. The MCP server with OAuth is planned for phase 3, on every plan. Push wakes an agent when a catch fires.

What Syften does not have

No dedicated pricing URL. The pricing section is an anchor on the homepage.
No annual plans.
No LinkedIn or Facebook coverage, stated in llms.txt.
MCP and webhooks are gated to PRO at $119.95/mo. API access starts at Standard ($49.95/mo).
No llms-full.txt, no OpenAPI spec, no .well-known/mcp.json, no MCP registry listing.
Blog cadence collapsed after a May 2026 bulk publish of 42 posts. Zero posts published in June, August, or September 2026.
The F5Bot alternative page cites tiers that do not exist on F5Bot’s own site.

Syften runs 164 programmatic subreddit stats pages under /reddit/r/ with daily data. These carry no JSON-LD and depend on continued daily scraping. The MCP page and Reddit page both have a "Last month on Syften" stats block that renders client-side, so crawlers may not see the numbers.

Questions

Both cover Discourse forums. What is different?

discatch gives Discourse a first-class page, per-forum watching by URL, site: restriction in queries, and a forum-triage playbook. Syften covers Discourse as one source among several under a generic /forums page.

Syften says MCP cannot push. Is that true for discatch too?

Yes, MCP is pull-only by spec for everyone. That is why discatch ships push separately: a catch calls your destination when it fires.

Which is cheaper at the entry level?

Different shapes. Syften’s $29.95 buys a filter tier with 3 community filters and no API. discatch’s free tier covers free sources with a daily unit allowance, and paid plans start at $19/mo placeholder with catches at 15 minutes.

Does Syften have annual pricing?

No annual pricing was shown on syften.com on 2026-09-10. The tiers are monthly only. discatch plans to offer both monthly and annual.

Why is the MCP server PRO-only on Syften?

Syften gates MCP and webhooks to the $119.95/mo PRO tier. API access starts at Standard ($49.95/mo). discatch’s MCP server, when it ships, will be on every plan.

Does Syften use OAuth for MCP?

No. Syften’s MCP server uses a personal API key as a Bearer token. discatch’s MCP server will use OAuth when it ships.

Does Syften cover LinkedIn?

No. Syften’s llms.txt states it does not monitor LinkedIn or Facebook. SnitchFeed uses this as a wedge against Syften.

What sources does Syften have that discatch does not?

Syften ships Bluesky, Mastodon, Indie Hackers, Lobste.rs, Dev.to, Product Hunt, Slack communities, X (add-on), YouTube (add-on), podcasts, and newsletters today. discatch has Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt planned.

How does Syften’s F5Bot alternative page compare to the real F5Bot?

Syften’s /f5bot-alternative page names "Power, Ultra, and Enterprise tiers" and quotes no F5Bot prices. F5Bot’s tiers on 2026-09-10 are Free, Silver ($9.99), Gold ($49.99), Platinum ($214.99), and Diamond (from $500). The page has no "verified on" date.

Try it yourself

The fairest comparison is a quote for your own query against what Syften 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. Syften facts read on 2026-09-10 from syften.com/mcp-social-listening, syften.com/llms.txt, syften.com/#pricing, syften.com/documentation. Research: docs/seo/competitor-map.md.