Hacker News API

hacker-news.firebaseio.com · Media

Media No Auth Free & Open News Tech Community

Official Y Combinator Hacker News API — top stories, new stories, best stories, jobs, Ask HN, Show HN, comments, and user profiles. Real-time via Firebase. No API key required.

Authentication

No authentication requiredFree to use with no key needed.

Sample Requests

GET Get top story IDs

Get IDs of the current top 500 HN stories.

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json

Hover any highlighted part to learn what it does

curl -X GET "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"

import requests
response = requests.get(
    "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json",
)
print(response.json())

const url = 'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json';

const response = await fetch(url); 
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	targetURL := "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json"
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", targetURL, nil)

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, _ := client.Do(req)
	defer resp.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(body))
}

require "net/http"
require "json"

uri = URI("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json")

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = uri.scheme == "https"

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)

res = http.request(req)
puts JSON.parse(res.body)

<?php
$url = "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json";
$opts = ["http" => [
    "method" => "GET",
]];
$ctx = stream_context_create($opts);
$res = file_get_contents($url, false, $ctx);
print_r(json_decode($res, true));

GET Get a story

Get a specific story, comment, or job by ID.

https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json

Hover any highlighted part to learn what it does

curl -X GET "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json"

import requests
response = requests.get(
    "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json",
)
print(response.json())

const url = 'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json';

const response = await fetch(url); 
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	targetURL := "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json"
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", targetURL, nil)

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, _ := client.Do(req)
	defer resp.Body.Close()
	body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
	fmt.Println(string(body))
}

require "net/http"
require "json"

uri = URI("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json")

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = uri.scheme == "https"

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)

res = http.request(req)
puts JSON.parse(res.body)

<?php
$url = "https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/8863.json";
$opts = ["http" => [
    "method" => "GET",
]];
$ctx = stream_context_create($opts);
$res = file_get_contents($url, false, $ctx);
print_r(json_decode($res, true));

Postman Setup Guide

Get Postman ↗

No API key needed
Step 1: GET /topstories.json to get list of IDs
Step 2: GET /item/{id}.json for each story
Also: /newstories.json, /beststories.json, /showstories.json, /jobstories.json

What can you build with Hacker News API?

Hacker News API is a Media API. Developers commonly use media APIs for:

storing and delivering images, video, and audio
building digital asset management and media libraries
transcoding and optimising media for the web
adding video streaming and playback to your app
automating content tagging and metadata extraction

No authentication required. This API is open — no signup or key needed. Ideal for quick prototypes and public-facing features. Hacker News API is free to use, making it a low-risk choice to experiment with.

New to APIs? Read our beginner's guide

Open documentation ↗