Octolens alternative

Octolens is a full brand-monitoring platform from $159/mo. AskHound is a free, open-source way for dev-tool founders and their agents to find buying-intent posts on Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Exchange and Bluesky, with hosted MCP from $19/mo.

Try it now (free, no signup)

Player 1 · type a product, rival or job

Level select:

Octolens (octolens.com/pricing, checked 2026-10-18) lists $159/month (15,000 mentions) and $499/month (50,000 mentions) plans plus Enterprise, with API, webhooks and an MCP server on all plans, AI filtering and a 7-day free trial. It tracks Twitter/X, Reddit, Bluesky, GitHub, YouTube, Stack Overflow, Hacker News, DEV.to, newsletters, podcasts and more.

Octolens vs AskHound

Feature	Octolens	AskHound
Sources	X, Reddit, Bluesky, GitHub, YouTube, Stack Overflow, HN, DEV.to, newsletters, podcasts…	HN, GitHub, Stack Exchange, Bluesky
MCP / API	All plans	Free local MCP; remote MCP free (10 results) or from $19/mo
Open source	No	Yes (MIT CLI + MCP)
AI relevance filtering	Yes	Transparent intent hint; your agent's model does the rest
Alerts / Slack	Yes	Run packs on a schedule (cron or your agent)
Entry price	$159/mo	$0; $19/mo hosted

Honest take

Choose Octolens if you need brand monitoring across X, Reddit, YouTube and newsletters with AI filtering and Slack alerts, and $159+/mo fits your budget. Choose AskHound if you are an early dev-tool or prosumer founder whose users ask on HN, GitHub, Stack Exchange and Bluesky, and you want your agent to do the searching for $0–$19/mo.

Cartridges

Give it to your agent

Remote MCP

zero install · Stack Exchange + Bluesky, from our server

Free: 10 results per call, 20 calls a day. A key lifts the cap and returns 50 to 100.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "askhound": { "url": "https://askhound.haullabs.dev/api/mcp" }
  }
}

Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http askhound https://askhound.haullabs.dev/api/mcp

Local MCP

all 4 sources · runs on your machine · Node 18+

HN and GitHub are queried with your own access.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "askhound": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "https://askhound.haullabs.dev/askhound-0.1.5.tgz", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

CLI

one file · zero dependencies

npx -y https://askhound.haullabs.dev/askhound-0.1.5.tgz \
  search "otter.ai alternative" --context meeting,transcript

# save a pack, run it daily, new results only
askhound pack save mine --competitor Otter.ai \
  --competitor Fireflies --category "transcript export"
askhound pack run --md today.md

Honest-reply policy (built into every tool response): a human approves every public reply; never auto-post or mass-DM; disclose that you build the product; answer the question first and name alternatives; follow each community's rules. Hacker News, for example, does not allow AI-generated or AI-edited comments, so replies there must be written by you. AskHound finds the conversation. You decide whether you have something useful to say.

Insert coin

Pricing: select your player

Free is for looking around. Paid plans are for not missing anyone: watches re-run your searches on our server and send you only people you haven't seen yet. Hosted searches cover Stack Exchange and Bluesky (the sources whose terms allow server-side use). Hacker News and GitHub run in the free CLI on your machine. No Reddit, no X.

FreeP1 · free play

$0forever

Browser search: 3 a day, last 7 days, top 10
Remote MCP: 10 results per call, 20 calls a day
Open-source CLI + local MCP (MIT): HN, GitHub, Stack Exchange, Bluesky
Local reply-state

Install ▶

Most picked

Solo1 player

$19/ month

$149/ yearsave $79 · 2 months+ free

3 always-on watches
Daily email digest of new askers only (beta)
Search 90 days back, every result
Remote MCP: 50 results per call, no daily cap
Cloud reply-state sync

Start Solo ▶Start Solo yearly ▶

Pro3 players

$49/ month

$390/ yearsave $198 · 2 months+ free

15 watches
Hourly checks (beta, see note)
Slack, Discord or any webhook, plus email
Remote MCP: 100 results per call
3 seats sharing reply-state

Start Pro ▶Start Pro yearly ▶

Agency10 players

$149/ monthmonthly only

Everything in Pro
50 watches (one set per client)
White-label client reports (Markdown/HTML)
10 seats

Start Agency ▶

Beta, plainly: email digests are in beta until our sending domain is verified; until then a new watch is saved and starts emailing the day the sender goes live (Slack, Discord and webhooks on Pro work now). Hourly checks are in beta too: our scheduler runs daily today, hourly is being switched on. Your license key appears right after checkout. Cancel anytime: reply to your Stripe receipt and we cancel it. Full refund within 14 days if it isn't useful to you.