# Algolia Hacker News Search

20 Hacker News commenters recommended Algolia Hacker News Search and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free search of Hacker News comments and submissions that finds content hidden by flagging. Critics note keyword-only matching and occasional cache or syncing glitches.

## Why people recommend it

- Finds content hidden by flagging (3 comments): "One of the nice things I like about hn.algolia.com is that it doesn’t care about flagging." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613750)) "That way you can still find content that is ordinarily rudely shoved out of view." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49825692)) "good to see submissions unfairly flagged off the main page by dishonest groups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080108))
- Good search interface and usefulness (3 comments): "hn.algolia.com is a great search interface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434346)) "I find the HN search to be quite useful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49137415)) "It’s such a joy to use, to share" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145695))
- Better than Google and Reddit search (2 comments): "It's pretty good. You appreciate it more when you try to use Reddit's!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46209414)) "can be way more useful than google to me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393715))

## What people warn about

- Cache and syncing glitches (2 comments): "Seems to have some weird cache issues though, had to play around with the ?querystring part to get more results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48146873)) "the JS front-end seems to have some syncing bugs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48154220))
- Feels abandoned or broken (3 comments): "it feels more like it's abandoned" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47115849)) "It is just so horribly broken" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47118813)) "hn.algolia.com gave me a 502" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49523799))
- Keyword search is hard to use (2 comments): "using the current keyword based search has been consistently giving me a hard time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45983043)) "Even using algolia, I don't see a way to generate a list in this exact format." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48483497))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-search.md): 315 recommend
- [Yandex Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/yandex.md): 79 recommend
- [Marginalia Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marginalia-search.md): 50 recommend
- [Bing](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bing.md): 33 recommend
- [Ecosia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ecosia.md): 24 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://hn.algolia.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Algolia Hacker News Search", https://hackerapproved.com/p/algolia-hacker-news-search/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).