F5Bot and ScoutTide: an honest comparison
F5Bot emails you when your keywords appear on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters, and its basic plan is free. ScoutTide reads posts and tenders against a description of what you sell and sends one ranked list each morning. Here is which one fits you.
Which one fits you
- Choose F5Bot if you want keyword alerts for free. Its free plan watches Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters for your keywords and emails you, with no credit card. ScoutTide is paid after its free trial.
- Choose F5Bot if you need to know within minutes. It checks all three sites every few minutes, and its paid plans send an alert within minutes of a match, or instantly from Gold. ScoutTide sends one ranked list a day.
- Choose ScoutTide if you would rather describe than list keywords. Describe what you sell once and the AI reads each post against it, with a reason for every match, across more places than Reddit and Hacker News. Government tenders arrive in their own list.
F5Bot and ScoutTide, compared
| Compared | F5Bot | ScoutTide |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters, across posts and comments in every subreddit | Tenders from 143 official sources in 182 countries, plus social leads from Reddit, Hacker News, Stack Exchange, Discourse forums and web searches that reach LinkedIn, Upwork and X |
| How matching works | Keyword alerts by email, with filters for subreddits, excluded terms and keywords that must appear together. From the Gold plan: AI filtering in plain language, RSS and JSON feeds, Slack and Discord | AI reads each notice and post against a plain description of what you sell and gives a short reason for every match. One ranked list each morning, with an email digest |
| Pricing | Free forever, then Silver $9.99, Gold $49.99 and Platinum $214.99 a month, with a month free when paid yearly. Diamond for enterprises starts at $500 a month | Individual $39 a month, Team $149 a month, less when paid yearly. Bought online, cancel anytime |
| Free trial | No trial needed: the free plan takes only an email address, no credit card | 14 days, no card needed to begin |
| Working as a team | From the Gold plan, alerts can go to your team’s Slack or Discord channels. Seat counts are not stated on its website | Team includes 25 seats: one shared queue, each lead claimed by one person, pipeline stages and roles |
| Languages | Not stated on its website | The site in 22 languages. Tenders written in other languages are translated to English |
The F5Bot column is based on its own website as of October 2026: f5bot.com/, f5bot.com/tiers
What each does that the other does not
Going by each product’s own website as of October 2026.
Only F5Bot
- A free plan. Keyword alerts for Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters by email, free forever for personal use.
- Every subreddit, posts and comments. It tracks mentions across posts and comments in every subreddit, and on Lobsters as well. Reddit posts reach ScoutTide through feeds and searches instead.
- Alerts the way you want them. Instantly, batched or as a daily digest at times you choose, with RSS, JSON and API access for your own tools.
Only ScoutTide
- A description instead of keywords. Describe what you sell in plain words. ScoutTide turns that into searches and gives a short reason for every match.
- LinkedIn, Upwork and Stack Exchange. Questions on Stack Exchange and Discourse forums, and public LinkedIn and Upwork posts reached through web searches, with no login.
- Government tenders. Tenders from official portals arrive in their own list, matched against the same description.
What ScoutTide does not do
- No instant alerts. You get one ranked list a day, ready each morning. If you need to reply within minutes of a post going up, a real time alert tool suits you better.
- No posting for you. ScoutTide never posts, replies or sends messages on your behalf. It shows you the post and why it fits, and you answer from your own account.
- No brand analytics. There are no mention counts, sentiment charts or share of voice reports. ScoutTide is a list of people who may buy, not a brand monitoring tool.
Questions about F5Bot and ScoutTide
Is ScoutTide free like F5Bot?
No. ScoutTide has a free trial and then a paid plan, while F5Bot has a free plan. You can try ScoutTide’s matching on its homepage without an account: describe what you sell and see up to five recent matches.
Does ScoutTide watch every Reddit comment?
No. Reddit posts reach ScoutTide through feeds and searches, so coverage is broad but it is not a live stream of every comment. F5Bot says it tracks posts and comments in every subreddit.
Does ScoutTide read Hacker News?
Yes. Hacker News is one of its sources, and you can add your own Hacker News search as a feed. Lobsters is not among its sources, though you can add any RSS feed yourself.
How much does ScoutTide cost?
Individual is $39 a month or $390 a year. Team is $149 a month or $1,490 a year. Both start with a 14 day free trial.
Try ScoutTide on your own market.
The table is a summary. Your own list is the real test: describe what you sell today and read your first ranked list tomorrow morning.