F5Bot is a social media and community mention monitoring tool, with a focus on Reddit, Hacker News, and Lobsters. After users add keywords for a brand, product, or topic, the system sends email alerts within minutes when a new post or comment matches. It has been running since 2017, and its website says it sends more than 300,000 alerts per day.
Its core function is keyword monitoring across posts and comments on three tech-oriented communities, including all subreddits. Advanced features include subreddit filtering, excluded terms, required co-occurring keywords, alert grouping, full-text excerpts, and bulk keyword uploads. The Ultra tier offers AI semantic alerts, allowing users to describe in natural language the type of discussion they want to find, with the model deciding whether a match is relevant. For integrations, F5Bot supports instant, grouped, scheduled, or daily digest email delivery, as well as RSS, JSON feeds, REST API, Webhook, and Slack and Discord integrations, making it suitable for team workflows or internal tools.
The free tier is permanently free and includes 200 keywords, email notifications, and basic filtering, but it includes ads. Power costs about $14.17/month when billed annually, or $16.99/month when billed monthly, and includes 350 keywords, more advanced filtering, RSS/JSON, and scheduled emails. Ultra costs about $58.33/month when billed annually, or $69.99/month when billed monthly, and includes 1,000 keywords, REST API, Webhook, Slack/Discord, and AI semantic alerts. Enterprise plans require custom contact. Note that semantic features are billed separately based on LLM tokens, and the terms state that subscriptions auto-renew and fees are non-refundable.
The main advantages are that it is extremely quick to get started with and only requires email registration; the free quota is generous compared with similar tools; and its monitoring scope is concentrated on developer and technical discussion communities, which makes it valuable for open-source projects, developer tools, and SaaS startups. The availability of API, Webhook, RSS, and JSON also means it can serve not only as an alerting tool, but also as a data input source. The downsides are its relatively narrow platform coverage, with no X, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Chinese social media; no clear information found on self-hosting, open source availability, SDKs, or team permissions; and some cost uncertainty around AI semantic alerts.
F5Bot is suitable for indie developers, open-source maintainers, technical product marketing teams, PR teams, and salespeople who need to capture leads from Reddit/HN. The collected text does not specify accessibility from China, and because it depends on external platforms such as Reddit, access from mainland China may be unstable, so its status is marked as unknown. If you need Chinese-language public opinion monitoring or local channels, domestic media monitoring tools may be a better fit; if you only need broad web alerts, you can compare it with Google Alerts, Mention, Brand24, and similar services.
โ This review is compiled from public sources and does not constitute a purchase recommendation. Verify all facts on the vendor's official site. Verify on f5bot.com official site.
f5bot.com is an United States Dev Tools provider. TG4G tracks its product information, an overall rating of 8.0/10, and a China-accessibility score of Workable. Click "Visit Official Site" to reach f5bot.com directly.