Hacker News, visualized.

Questions, answered.

What is HackerHub?

HackerHub is an independent visual reader for Hacker News. It turns public stories into a heatmap, with tile size showing popularity and colour showing discussion activity. You can open stories to read their Hacker News comments and follow links to the original sources.

What do the tile sizes mean?

Larger tiles represent stories with more Hacker News points. Size differences are compressed to keep less popular stories readable, so tile area is not a literal point-for-point scale.

How is a story’s heat calculated?

HackerHub divides the total number of comments by the story’s age in hours, using a minimum age of half an hour. This is average comments per hour since posting. It is not a measurement of comments in the last hour.

Why can stories with different comment counts have the same colour?

Colours show relative activity within each batch of up to 30 stories. Stories with no comments use the quietest colour. The remaining stories are ranked by average comments per hour across the warmer colours. Colour alone does not compare absolute activity across different batches.

Which Hacker News feeds can I browse?

HackerHub supports Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, and Jobs. Top follows the Hacker News front page, New follows recent submissions, Best follows its best-stories feed, Ask collects questions, Show collects community projects, and Jobs lists hiring posts.

How often does the heatmap refresh?

The interactive heatmap refreshes about once a minute while its browser tab is visible. Public API responses and reading pages may be briefly cached and include response-generation timestamps so readers and agents can assess freshness.

Can I read HackerHub without JavaScript?

Yes. The readable feed and story pages contain server-rendered HTML, including titles, source links, points, comment counts, and a bounded selection of comments. The interactive heatmap needs JavaScript.

Where does the data come from?

Feed, story, and comment data come from the official public Hacker News API. Keyword search uses the public Algolia Hacker News Search API. Story titles and comments are submitted by Hacker News users; follow the source links for the underlying reporting or project.

Is HackerHub affiliated with Hacker News?

HackerHub is an independent interface. Hacker News and Y Combinator are separate services. Points and discussion activity reflect community engagement, rather than independent verification of a headline.

Can AI agents use HackerHub?

Yes. Compatible agents can connect to the public read-only MCP server or use the JSON API with its OpenAPI description. Supported browser agents can also use WebMCP tools when the heatmap is open. The interfaces expose public stories and comments without an API key.