Compare · F5Bot
F5Bot Alternative for Reddit and Hacker News brand alerts with sentiment
EyeOut is an F5Bot alternative for teams that need to know how people feel about their brand, not only that a keyword appeared. It scans Reddit, Google News and Mastodon every 30 minutes on every plan, adds Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts episode descriptions from the $94 Growth plan, scores every mention for sentiment toward your brand and emails you about negative ones, from $39 a month billed yearly. F5Bot is cheaper, faster from its Gold tier and also covers Lobsters, so it remains the better buy for instant keyword pings alone.
Pricing verified against public sources
Start watching to see mentions from news, Reddit, Mastodon and forums with sentiment.
Sentiment
Share of voice
Negative mention spike detected
on Reddit and forums, up 320% vs baseline. Severity: High.
Suggested first move: review the batch threads and prepare a holding response before it spreads to news.
Interactive demo on a representative mention set. Your own workspace scans every source twice an hour.
Watch your own brand across news, Reddit and forums and get the alert when something spikes.
Every 30 minutes across Google News, Reddit, Mastodon, Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts. AI sentiment, spike and crisis alerts.
F5Bot is cheaper, delivers instantly from Gold, and covers Lobsters, which EyeOut does not. EyeOut adds Google News and Mastodon in the same feed, scores sentiment toward your brand on every mention, groups mentions into a daily digest, and from Growth flags a keyword that breaks from its own 7-day average instead of sending one email per match.
What it costs
F5Bot pricing vs EyeOut pricing
List pricing as each vendor publishes it on its own pricing page. Vendors change their rates, so confirm before you buy.
EyeOut
$39/mo Starter (3 keywords, 5,000 mentions, 1 seat, Reddit, Google News and Mastodon), $94/mo Growth (10 keywords, 50,000 mentions, 3 seats, adds Hacker News, Lemmy, podcasts, crisis radar, Slack, 3 competitors), $249/mo Pro (30 keywords, 250,000 mentions, 10 seats, severity, emotion, API and webhooks), billed yearly. Monthly billing $79, $189 and $499. Scans every 30 minutes on every plan. No free plan.
F5Bot
Free (personal use only, 5 keywords, 20 alerts a day, up to 2 hours late), Silver $9.99/mo or $109/yr (20 keywords, up to 5 minutes), Gold $49.99/mo or $549/yr (200 keywords, instant, 90 days history, Slack or Discord), Platinum $214.99/mo or $2,364/yr (300 keywords, 200,000 alerts a day, API and webhooks), Diamond from $500/mo.
F5Bot figures were read from its own tier table at f5bot.com/tiers in September 2026, including the per-keyword daily caps (10, 30, 100 and 500 matches) and the AI filtering note: the first $10 a month of token usage is included on Gold and Platinum and usage beyond that is billed on top.
The longer answer
Why teams look for a F5Bot alternative
F5Bot does one job and does it well. It watches every Reddit post and comment, plus Hacker News and Lobsters, for the words you give it, and emails you when they show up so you can join the thread while it is still active. Its tier table, read from f5bot.com/tiers in September 2026, runs from a Free plan marked personal use only (5 keywords, 20 alerts a day, alerts up to two hours late) through Silver at $9.99 a month, Gold at $49.99, Platinum at $214.99 and Diamond from $500. Instant alerts, RSS feeds and the first Slack or Discord integration start on Gold, and the API and webhooks start on Platinum.
Teams usually go looking for an F5Bot alternative for one of three reasons. The alert volume gets noisy and nobody can tell which of forty matches matters. The story breaks in the press first and only reaches Reddit a day later, so a Reddit-only feed hears about it late. Or someone senior asks whether the conversation about the brand is getting better or worse, and a pile of keyword emails cannot answer that.
EyeOut is built for that second question. You add brand, product, competitor and category keywords, and EyeOut scans Reddit, Google News and Mastodon every 30 minutes on every plan, with Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts episode titles and descriptions added from the Growth plan. Each mention is scored for sentiment toward your brand, negative mentions trigger an email, and a daily digest groups the rest into themes. From Growth, a crisis radar compares each keyword's last 24 hours with its own 7-day average and alerts you when it breaks from normal, and Slack alerts and share of voice against three competitors come with it. Be clear about the trade. EyeOut does not watch Lobsters, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn or review sites, it is not real time, it does not backfill mentions from before you add a keyword, and it has no free plan.
Side by side
F5Bot vs EyeOut, honestly
A fair look at what each does well. Both are capable tools. Here is where they differ.
| What matters | EyeOut | F5Bot |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | Reddit, Google News and Mastodon on every plan; Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts titles and descriptions from Growth | Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters on every tier |
| Hacker News | From the $94 Growth plan, not on Starter | Included from Free |
| Alert speed | Every 30 minutes on every plan, not real time | Up to 2 hours on Free, up to 5 minutes on Silver, instant or scheduled from Gold |
| Sentiment toward your brand | Every mention scored on every plan, emotion analysis on Pro | Not offered; AI filtering from Gold decides relevance, not sentiment |
| Spike and crisis alerts | Negative-mention email on every plan; from Growth a crisis radar compares each keyword with its own 7-day average | One alert per match, grouped from Silver; no baseline model |
| Slack | From the $94 Growth plan | From Gold at $49.99 (1 integration), 3 on Platinum |
| API and webhooks | On Pro at $249/mo billed yearly | On Platinum at $214.99/mo |
| Entry paid price | $39/mo billed yearly, $79 monthly | $9.99/mo on Silver, cheaper |
Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each product for the latest.
Why teams pick EyeOut
One tool for cross-channel brand monitoring
Know how it is going, not only that it happened
An F5Bot email says a word appeared. EyeOut scores each mention for sentiment toward your brand, so the thread where a customer says they are switching away is marked negative and sent to you, while the neutral name-drops wait for the daily digest.
The press in the same feed as Reddit
Stories often start in the news and reach Reddit or Hacker News hours later, or the other way round. EyeOut reads Google News and Mastodon next to Reddit on every plan, and Hacker News, Lemmy and podcast episode descriptions from Growth, so both halves of the story land in one place.
Fewer emails, clearer warnings
From Growth, EyeOut compares each keyword's last 24 hours with its own 7-day average and alerts you when it breaks from normal, with a short brief on what is being said. Pro adds severity grading and a breakdown of which source drove the spike.
Good questions
F5Bot vs EyeOut, answered
Before you decide
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See how EyeOut watches news, Reddit and forums
Watch your brand across Google News, Reddit, Mastodon, Hacker News, Lemmy and Apple Podcasts twice an hour, with AI sentiment, share of voice and spike alerts. Self-serve, transparent pricing, cancel anytime.
Every 30 minutes across news, Reddit, forums and podcasts · AI sentiment · spike and crisis alerts