About this almanac
Updated 30 June 2026
Hacker News Insights is a data almanac of Hacker News — how the front page actually changed from 2007 to today, built from the full public corpus of roughly 18 million posts and comments. New to HN? It's where programmers, founders, and researchers post and debate links across software, science, startups, and security. This site is an independent look at what rose and fell there over nineteen years.
The one rule
Every figure is a deterministic query over a complete local mirror of the corpus, re-run and diffed before anything ships. If a number can't be reproduced, it doesn't appear. No estimates dressed up as facts, no fabricated stats — just the corpus, measured. The methodology page walks through exactly how each figure is produced and checked, and most charts link straight back to the real discussion on Hacker News so you can read the source yourself.
How to read it
The corpus has four eras — a full-firehose census of every post (2007–2020), a partial crawl frontier, a smaller sampled stretch, and a live window — and absolute averages aren't comparable across them. So every figure is computed within one era, as a relative comparison, or from forward-captured rankings that don't depend on era at all. Where a number is directional rather than exact, the chart says so.
Independent project
Hacker News Insights is built and run by TR3HSE LLC. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Y Combinator or Hacker News; it simply studies their public data. No accounts, no cookies, no trackers — see Privacy and Terms.
Help shape it
What would you want measured? A trend, a comparison, a “does X actually correlate with Y?” — suggest a chart (completely anonymous), or get in touch directly. Ideas and feedback steer what gets built next, and when an ask shapes a change, it shows up in the log below.
Changelog
What's changed lately, newest first.
Data freshness became easier to verify
A unified status report now follows collection, processing, context, publication, and site readiness across every dashboard.
Live attention history became more resilient
Frequent ranking observations now flow into the main research archive automatically, while the broader item history continues catching up on a recurring schedule.
Mobile navigation and guided insights became clearer
Compact navigation now stays within small screens, while the homepage briefing advances to distinct follow-on findings instead of repeating the lead insight.
Verified insights now lead the story
A guided briefing now sequences the strongest verified findings, links each one to its evidence, and keeps scope and uncertainty visible.
Research paths became more reliable
Research modules and supporting pages now expose clearer structure, more reliable navigation, and better assistive context across the standalone site.
ShowHide 26 older entries
Charts became more precise and inspectable
Title-based measures now use titles only, captured trajectories break across missing observations, and chart details expose exact values, scales, sampling limits, and clearer evidence boundaries.
Community, careers, and research navigation became clearer
Aggregate discussion patterns now compare major Hacker News surfaces, careers history supports multiple explicit language signals with exact yearly values, and compact evidence routes no longer compete with primary navigation.
Headline-comparison coverage became easier to judge
A visible evidence-progress measure and a minimum-gated annual coverage table now show where direct headline comparisons are well represented and where sparse years remain withheld.
Headline evidence now earns prominence transparently
The direct publisher-title comparison now shows its path to a fixed evidence threshold and automatically becomes a primary source metric only after enough usable pairs have accrued.
Headline and hiring comparisons became more specific
An accruing publisher-headline comparison now distinguishes direct title changes from summary vocabulary, while careers evidence adds explicit geography and conservative currency-separated annual compensation bands.
Source and careers evidence expanded
The research lab now shows linked-page availability and aggregate title-framing signals, plus separate official-jobs and community hiring trends with transparent definitions. A refined chapter structure makes the deeper evidence easier to scan across devices.
Coverage and conversation evidence became easier to inspect
The research lab now separates mature history from live capture and directional samples, adds lifecycle distributions, conversation evolution, reviewed emerging themes, and surface comparisons, and keeps long live-story labels fully readable across screen sizes.
Attention Lab now opens much lighter
Annual topic and community indexes load first, while the larger captured-story archive loads only when Story Lifecycle is approached or directly requested. Offline caching follows the same split.
Attention Lab methods and detail became more rigorous
Year-to-date changes now use aligned dates, story velocity favors a stable multi-observation signal, lifecycle labels publish their priority rules, domain views separate recent volume from historical engagement, and exact tables are easier to inspect.
The Hacker News dashboard gained a clearer reading path
A compact set of analysis paths now leads from current attention and behavior into an optional long-form research atlas, while every site destination remains reachable at laptop and mobile widths.
Controls and analytical framing became more precise
Primary navigation stays still, chart selectors render consistently, and descriptive comparisons now distinguish observed associations from advice or causation.
Hacker News exploration became deeper and more connected
A concise briefing now leads into privacy-safe community cohorts, source-domain history, descriptive story lifecycle patterns, and side-by-side captured-story comparison.
Research pages became clearer and easier to discover
Research pages now use more focused evidence, clearer interpretation and provenance, page-specific visual previews, and more accurate update signals for search engines.
Dashboards became faster and more resilient
Deeper analysis now loads when requested, dense maps render more efficiently, and shared forms and services have stronger safeguards.
Research is easier to find and share
New topic, year, product, source, state, agency, hazard, and airspace research pages make verified dashboard evidence easier to browse, cite, and discover. Page metadata, update feeds, and search indexes now stay synchronized automatically.
Forms became easier to use
Selection controls are now clearer and more consistent across devices and input methods.
Chart controls became clearer
Year selection is now easier to recognize and use across devices.
Topic cards became easier to explore
Selecting a topic now reveals more detail in place while the surrounding view reorganizes smoothly.
Analysis tools expanded
Readers can now inspect evidence, compare views, ask guided questions, and save private notes.
Layouts improved across devices
Dashboards now adapt more naturally from phones and tablets to large desktop displays.
Navigation became more compact
Briefing, exploration, search, saved views, and context now use less vertical space.
Sharing and identity improved
Dashboard names and shared-link previews are now clearer and more consistent.
Historical front pages became explorable
Past front pages can now be revisited and compared with current activity.
Suggestions and contact became easier
Readers can propose ideas, report corrections, or ask questions directly from the dashboard.
Topic momentum moved to the homepage
Rising and fading subjects are now easier to see before opening the deeper analysis.
Hacker News Insights launched
A long-range view of changing technology attention and notable stories became available.