F5Bot alternative: when keyword alerts aren't enough
facts about F5Bot checked on 18 October 2026 from its own pages
F5Bot is a keyword alert service that has been running since 2017. It watches Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters and emails you when your keywords appear. It's free to start. If you want to know every time your brand name shows up, it does that well and cheaply.
HearBuyers does a different job. It looks for people describing the problem you solve, scores how close each one is to buying, and drafts a reply your team approves. If your F5Bot inbox fills with mentions and you still have to work out which ones are buyers, HearBuyers handles that part.
F5Bot and HearBuyers, side by side
| What | f5bot | hearbuyers |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, posts and comments | X and Reddit |
| What it does | Alerts you when a keyword appears | Finds people describing the problem you solve and scores how close they are to buying |
| How you set it up | Add keywords, with filters | Paste your website. Buyers, problems, searches and communities are filled in for you to edit |
| Filtering | Subreddit, exclude and co-occurrence filters. AI filtering on the Gold plan | Every post scored 0 to 100 with a reason. Only matches above your threshold reach you |
| Replies | Not listed on its site | A reply drafted for every strong match. A person approves it and posts it |
| Where alerts go | Email (instant, batched or daily), Slack, Discord, RSS and JSON feeds | Slack, a daily email, and a team inbox with stages |
| Price | Free. Silver $9.99 a month (20 keywords). Gold $49.99 a month (200 keywords) | From $19 a month, free for 14 days with no card. Every plan includes scoring and drafted replies |
Sources for F5Bot, checked 18 October 2026: F5Bot home and pricing. F5Bot is a trademark of its owner. HearBuyers is not affiliated with it. Spot something out of date? Write to us and we will fix it.
When F5Bot is the better choice
- You need Hacker News or Lobsters. HearBuyers reads X and Reddit, not those.
- You want every mention of a word, such as your brand or a release name, with nothing filtering it.
- You need feeds. F5Bot offers RSS and JSON feeds you can plug into your own tools.
- Budget is zero. F5Bot's free plan covers keyword alerts by email.
When you need more than keyword alerts
- The alerts are noisy. A plain keyword alert fires on every post containing the word, including jokes, job posts and other vendors. F5Bot's Gold plan adds AI filtering by description, which helps. HearBuyers scores each post from 0 to 100, says why, and only sends you the ones above your threshold.
- Your buyers don't use your keyword. People describe a problem in their own words and rarely use your category's name. HearBuyers starts from those descriptions, which it writes from your website, and you can edit every one.
- You want X too. Many founders ask for recommendations on X first. HearBuyers reads X and Reddit together.
- You have to answer the post. Each strong match comes with a drafted reply to what the person asked. A person on your team approves it and posts it. Nothing goes out on its own.
- A team works the leads. Matches land in a shared inbox with stages, and the record shows who approved each reply.
The difference in one example
Say you sell bookkeeping software and track the word "bookkeeping". A keyword alert sends you a student asking about a course, a bookkeeper advertising their service, and an owner writing "my books are a mess and tax season is in six weeks, what do you all use?". HearBuyers scores the third one high, highlights that sentence and drafts an answer. You never see the other two.
Using both
Some teams keep F5Bot for brand mentions on Hacker News and use HearBuyers to find buyers on X and Reddit. The two barely overlap.
If you mostly want free alerts, our Reddit keyword alerts page lists the free options, and the F5Bot review covers what F5Bot does in more detail. We also compare SnitchFeed, which scores conversations for leads.
For how F5Bot stacks up against the other tools people on Reddit name, see Reddit monitoring tools Redditors use.
Moving your keywords over
- Sign up for HearBuyers and paste your company website.
- Check the searches it suggests, and add your best F5Bot keywords to them.
- Add the subreddits you filter on as communities.
- Set your score threshold and connect Slack.
Try HearBuyers on your market
Paste your website. Your first scored matches from X and Reddit arrive within minutes, each with a drafted reply. Free for 14 days, no card.