Hacker News says the quiet part out loud. Scrape it for angles.
Adlicio reads the comments under any public Hacker News thread and ranks them into ad angles, each with a hook line and the verbatim quotes behind it.
★ 4.5 on the Chrome Web Store · no card needed
“I'd just use the open-source one and self-host it.”
“The pricing page buries the per-seat cost. Classic.”
“Actually solved a real problem for us. Pleasantly surprised.”
Technical buyers assume they can self-host it for free
“Pleasantly surprised it solved a real problem.” The skeptic's review that sells.
Hacker News is one of the few public places where a technical audience argues in the open about what is actually good, what is overhyped, and what they would reach for instead. Adlicio reads those comments and ranks the objections, alternatives, and trade-offs that decide whether a technical buyer takes you seriously.
What can you do with Hacker News comments?
Scrape threads about your category for the objections technical buyers raise first.
Pull the tools people say they'd use instead to name your real competitors.
Lift verbatim technical language to write copy that sounds credible to engineers.
Build an objection bank from the most critical comments in your space.
How does the Hacker News scraper work?
- 01Paste a Hacker News thread URL
Any public item page. No API key, no code.
- 02Adlicio reads the comments
It clusters the technical objections, the war stories, and the buried praise across every reply in about 60 seconds.
- 03You get ranked angles
Each with a hook line and the commenter quotes behind it, ready for Claude or ChatGPT.
The honest limits: Adlicio only reads what is already public, and it never posts, votes, or messages on your behalf.
“Really user-friendly for pulling comments from a thread, and the files it spits out are perfectly formatted, no messy cleanup needed.”
Hacker News scraper FAQ
Does this need the Hacker News API?+
No. Adlicio reads the publicly visible comments on a thread, the same content any visitor sees, with no setup and no code.
Full guide: how to scrape Hacker News comments →What can it pull from Hacker News?+
The public comments under a thread, the text and who wrote it, which feed the same angle engine as every other source.
Why scrape Hacker News for ad angles?+
A technical audience states objections plainly and names the alternatives, the exact things a credible ad has to answer. Few competitors read it, so the angles are rarely overused.
Is scraping Hacker News comments allowed?+
Adlicio only reads what is already public and takes no action on your behalf. It never posts, votes, or replies.
What do I actually get back?+
Ranked angles: the recurring objections and comparisons by frequency, a hook line for each, and the verbatim Hacker News quotes behind them, ready to test as ad copy or drop into Claude or ChatGPT.
Go deeper on Hacker News
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Turn Hacker News comments into one testable angle.
Start with one public page. Adlicio returns the angle, hook, and proof to try next.