figures verified 2026-09-10

Octolens vs Syften

Octolens covers more sources, has stronger customer logos, and ships MCP on every plan with OAuth and 23 tools. Syften costs less, has operated since 2019, and publishes a dated changelog with commit counts. Pick Octolens if you need 15 platforms including Scale-only sources like podcasts and newsletters. Pick Syften if you need a lean, bootstrapped tool focused on developer communities at $29.95 a month.

Feature	Octolensas of 2026-09-10	Syftenas of 2026-09-10	discatchthe plan
Built for agents first(partial: an MCP server exists but the product is dashboard-first)	partial	partial	yes
MCP server	yes	PRO only	planned
REST API and webhooks	yes	PRO only	yes
Push that wakes an agent(calls your agent when a catch fires, instead of waiting to be polled)	no	no	yes
Waterfall coverage(several providers per source, cheapest first, merged)	no	no	yes
Pay per unit	no	no	yes
Query-time price quote	no	no	yes
Discourse forums	Scale only	yes	yes
Relevance judged by your model(raw candidates plus a prescore by default)	no	no	yes
Never posts for you	yes	yes	yes
Open playbooks(copyable scripts that plug into the API, published under MIT)	no	no	yes
Entry price	$159/mo	$29.95/mo	free, then units
Entry price, annual	$159/mo	none (no annual plans)	free, then units
Entry price, monthly	$199/mo	$29.95/mo	free, then units
API access	included on all plans	from $49.95/mo (Standard)	included
MCP	yes (OAuth, 23 tools, every plan)	PRO only ($119.95, API key, 8 tools)	planned
Operating since	2023	2019	pre-launch

Price

Octolens sells two self-serve tiers. Pro is $199 a month monthly or $159 on annual billing and includes 15,000 mentions, 10 keywords, and hourly refresh. Scale is $599 or $499 and adds 50,000 mentions, 40 keywords, real-time refresh, and four sources that Pro does not include: podcasts, news, web, and newsletters. Extra mentions cost $0.013 on Pro and $0.01 on Scale. Extra keywords start at $5 a month.

Syften sells three tiers with no annual discount. Entry is $29.95 a month with 3 community filters, 100 results a day, and no API. Standard is $49.95 with 20 filters, 200 results a day, Slack, AI filtering, and API access. PRO is $119.95 with 100 filters, 500 results a day, webhooks, and MCP. X and YouTube are paid add-ons on Standard and PRO.

The cheapest Octolens plan with MCP costs $159 a month annual. The cheapest Syften plan with MCP costs $119.95 with no annual option. The cheapest Syften plan with API access costs $49.95. The cheapest Syften plan with webhook delivery is also PRO at $119.95.

Need	Octolens	Syften
Email alerts only	Pro $159/mo annual	Entry $29.95/mo
API access	Pro $159/mo annual	Standard $49.95/mo
MCP access	Pro $159/mo annual	PRO $119.95/mo
Webhooks	Pro $159/mo annual	PRO $119.95/mo
Podcasts, news, web	Scale $499/mo annual	Standard $49.95/mo

Cheapest plan per feature on 2026-09-10.

Sources

Octolens has 15 source pages covering Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, GitHub, Stack Overflow, DEV, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Mastodon, podcasts, newsletters, news, and web. Its marketing copy says "15+ platforms on every plan," but podcasts, news, web, and newsletters are Scale-only ($499 annual). It has no pages for Discourse, Product Hunt, or Slack communities.

Syften covers Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, Mastodon, GitHub, Indie Hackers, Slack communities, Discourse forums, Stack Overflow and Exchange, Lobste.rs, DEV, Product Hunt, podcasts, newsletters, and the public web. It does not cover LinkedIn or Facebook and says so in its llms.txt. X and YouTube are paid add-ons.

Syften covers more developer and community sources including Discourse, Indie Hackers, and Lobste.rs. Octolens covers more mainstream and social sources including LinkedIn and TikTok. Neither treats Discourse as a first-class source with per-forum configuration.

Source	Octolens	Syften
Reddit	yes	yes
Hacker News	yes	yes
Bluesky	yes	yes
Mastodon	yes	yes
GitHub	yes	yes
Stack Overflow	yes	yes
DEV	yes	yes
Discourse	no	yes (generic /forums)
Indie Hackers	no	yes
Lobste.rs	no	yes
Product Hunt	no	yes
LinkedIn	yes	no
TikTok	yes	no
X	yes	paid add-on
YouTube	yes	paid add-on
Podcasts	Scale only	yes
News, web	Scale only	yes
Newsletters	Scale only	yes
Slack communities	no	yes

Source coverage as of 2026-09-10 from each product’s own pages.

Agent surface

Octolens ships llms.txt, llms-full.txt (629 KB), a 52-path OpenAPI 3.1 spec, a .well-known/mcp.json with 23 tools, an agent-permissions.json, an npm CLI, and 11 agent skills. Its MCP uses OAuth and is available on every plan including the free 50-search tier. It is listed on the MCP registry.

Syften ships llms.txt (13 KB) and an MCP server with 8 tools using API-key auth, available only on the PRO plan at $119.95 a month. It has no llms-full.txt, no OpenAPI spec, no .well-known/mcp.json, and no MCP registry listing. Its API documentation is a single 243 KB page.

Syften’s MCP page states: "the MCP server responds when an agent calls a tool; it does not push new mentions." Octolens’s MCP is also pull-only. Neither product pushes to an agent when a mention lands. Octolens delivers by email, Slack, and webhooks. Syften delivers by email, Slack, RSS, and webhooks (PRO only).

Octolens’s /agents FAQ says the CLI and MCP server are open source on GitHub. The npm package’s repository field points to a GitHub URL that returns 404 as of 2026-09-10. The public GitHub organization has no CLI repository. Syften makes no open-source claim.

Freshness and trust

Octolens published 21 blog posts between March and September 2026 at roughly 3.5 a month. It refreshes listicles monthly: 12 posts had their dateModified updated in early September 2026. Posts are authored by the CEO (34 of 35) with no visible byline or "Updated" label in the rendered HTML despite dates in the metadata. It has 28 named customer logos including Vercel, PostHog, Sentry, and Supabase, and 21 quoted testimonials. It has no /about page, no changelog, and no author pages.

Syften published about 42 posts in May 2026 in a bulk push, then near-silence: one post in July, zero in August, two updates in September. It has operated since 2019 and shows a trust strip: "177 commits in last 30 days, last release 13 hours ago." Its changelog has 11 dated entries through June 2026. Posts are authored by the founder with a real bio, personal site, and address.

Octolens has more content and bigger logos. Syften has a longer track record, a visible changelog, and 11 named testimonials including the CEOs of PostHog and RevenueCat.

Who should pick which

Pick Octolens if you need wide source coverage, the Scale-only sources (podcasts, news, web, newsletters), a polished agent surface with OAuth MCP, and a free 50-search tier. Expect to pay $159 a month or more.

Pick Syften if you need Discourse, Indie Hackers, or Lobste.rs coverage, want a seven-year track record from a solo founder, and want to start at $29.95 a month. Be aware that MCP requires the $119.95 PRO plan and uses API-key auth instead of OAuth.

The third option

discatch is a social listening API and alert system built for agents. It sells by the unit, not the seat or the keyword count. MCP with OAuth is planned on every plan including the free tier. Discourse forums are a first-class source with per-forum catches.

Questions

Which is cheaper, Octolens or Syften?

Syften. Its Entry plan is $29.95 a month with no annual option. Octolens Pro is $159 a month on annual billing or $199 monthly. Octolens’s free 50-search tier has no standing alerts.

Can I use Syften’s MCP without the PRO plan?

No. MCP is PRO-only at $119.95 a month. API access starts at Standard ($49.95). Entry has no API or MCP.

Does Octolens cover Discourse forums?

No. Octolens has no Discourse page and no Discourse source in its sitemap. Syften covers Discourse with a generic /forums page but not as a named per-forum source.

Does either push mentions to an agent?

No. Both MCP servers are pull-only. Syften states this on its MCP page: "the MCP server responds when an agent calls a tool; it does not push new mentions."

Does Octolens have annual pricing?

Yes. Pro is $159 a month annual, $199 monthly. Scale is $499 annual, $599 monthly. Syften has no annual pricing on any plan.

Are Octolens’s sources really available on every plan?

No. Podcasts, news, web, and newsletters require the Scale plan at $499 a month annual. The "15+ platforms on every plan" copy counts only the sources available on Pro.

Who ranks for "octolens vs syften" today?

No neutral page exists. The results are a rival’s three-way programmatic comparison, Octolens’s 2024 "Syften alternative" blog post, and multi-way listicles from small vendors. Neither Octolens nor Syften has a dedicated head-to-head page.

What does discatch change?

discatch sells by the unit with no keyword limit. A catch costs one alert unit when it fires and nothing when it does not. MCP with OAuth and push to an agent are planned for every tier. Prices are placeholders until launch.

Try it yourself

The third option, priced for your own terms. 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. Octolens and Syften facts read on 2026-09-10. Research: docs/seo/competitor-map.md.