F5Bot vs Syften: which keyword alert tool should you use?

F5Bot

• Monitors Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters (posts and comments) and alerts you when your keywords appear. Running since 2017.
• Free plan: keyword alerts, email notifications and basic filtering flags. No credit card required.
• Silver, $12.99/month: 20 keywords, advanced filtering flags, full post text and ad-free emails. Marked for individual, non-commercial use.
• Gold, $49.99/month: 200 keywords, RSS and JSON feeds, AI filtering, and Slack and Discord delivery. Aimed at professionals and small businesses.
• Email can be instant, batched on a delay, or a daily digest. Filters include subreddit, excluded terms and co-occurring keywords.

Syften

• Monitors Reddit, Hacker News, Indie Hackers, GitHub, Product Hunt, Stack Exchange, forums, Lobsters, Dev.to, newsletters, podcasts, Bluesky, Mastodon and the public web. X/Twitter and YouTube are paid add-ons. It does not monitor LinkedIn.
• Entry, $29.95/month: 3 community filters, 100 community results a day, 1 web filter, 7-day archive search and API access.
• Standard, $49.95/month: 20 community filters, 200 results a day, 30-day archive, Slack, AI filtering, and optional X (+$40/month) and YouTube (+$20/month).
• Pro, $119.95/month: 100 community filters, 500 results a day, full archive history, webhooks and MCP.
• Delivery by email, Slack, RSS, API or webhook, with a stated target Reddit delay of under one minute. A 14-day free trial of the Pro plan needs no credit card.

Side by side

• Cheapest option: F5Bot (free plan). Syften has no free plan, only a trial.
• Sources: F5Bot covers Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters. Syften covers many more communities plus the web, with X and YouTube as add-ons.
• Commercial use on a budget: F5Bot’s Silver plan is marked non-commercial, so businesses compare F5Bot Gold ($49.99/month) with Syften Entry ($29.95/month) or Standard ($49.95/month).
• AI filtering: F5Bot Gold; Syften Standard and Pro.
• Slack: F5Bot Gold (Slack and Discord); Syften Standard and Pro.
• Looking back in time: Syften includes archive search (7 days to full history by plan). F5Bot alerts on new posts and comments.
• Developer access: F5Bot lists RSS, JSON feeds and API access; Syften has an API on all plans, plus webhooks and MCP on Pro.

Which should you pick?

Choose F5Bot if Reddit and Hacker News are enough and you want free or low-cost alerts. Choose Syften if you need many communities, the open web or X in one place, fast delivery, or archive search. Both are mention trackers first: they tell you a keyword appeared, and you decide whether the person is worth replying to.

When LeadPerch fits better

LeadPerch is built for one job: finding people who are ready to buy. It searches recent Reddit posts, Hacker News and, on paid plans, X for your buyer phrases, scores each match for buying intent from 0 to 100 with a one-line reason, and drafts a disclosed reply you edit and post yourself. It refreshes daily rather than in real time and covers fewer sources than Syften, so it is not a replacement for live brand monitoring. Plans: Free (3 keywords, Reddit and Hacker News), Pro $29/month or $290/year, Agency $79/month.

FAQ

Related guides

• How to find customers on Reddit →
• Reddit marketing without getting banned →
• How to find beta users →
• Hacker News lead generation →
• Best subreddits for SaaS marketing →
• Reddit keyword alerts →
• Export your GummySearch data →
• F5Bot alternative →
• Syften alternative →