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The Hacker News Review

Worth it

Should I use The Hacker News?

The Hacker News is the top cybersecurity news platform, delivering real-time updates, threat intelligence, data breach reports, expert analysis, and actionable insights for infosec professionals and decision-makers. - thehackernews.com

· 1 month ago

Follow it if you need free, fast cybersecurity news on breaches and CVEs — there is nothing to purchase. Skip it if you actually wanted YC's Hacker News or a structured threat-intel feed rather than headlines.

Confidence

Medium. Based on ~30 public sources; mostly directory snippets, social profiles, and forum threads. This is a free media publication, not software.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support qualityNo support evidence in sources
  • Security posture

Pricing

Free

Reader

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly fees10M+
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes

Best for

  • Infosec pros tracking daily threats
  • SOC teams skimming breach news
  • Anyone wanting free security headlines

Not for

  • Anyone hunting YC's Hacker News — wrong site
  • Buyers shopping for software — nothing to purchase here
  • Guess: teams needing structured threat-intel feeds, not editorial headlines

Gotchas - check before you buy

medium

Name collision with YC's Hacker News causes constant mix-ups; bookmark

medium

Guess: ad-funded (~$356K/yr estimated revenue); expect sponsored content near editorial news

low

No public security or trust page on its own domain

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Free, constant coverage of breaches, CVEs, and vulnerabilities
  • Claims 10M+ monthly readers — huge reach in the niche
  • ~731K LinkedIn followers signals broad industry adoption
  • Used as a monitoring source by security vendor ThreatNG
  • RSS feed available for automated tracking

Cons

  • Constantly confused with YC's completely different.com
  • Self-brands as '#1 trusted source' — marketing claim, not independent ranking

Sources & method

- 10 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x5review x2security x1news x2

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • Free

    Starting price

  • 10

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Free to read, ad-supported
  • Ease of use: 4/5. Simple site with RSS; name confuses
  • Feature depth: 3/5. Categories, expert insights, RSS — not software
  • Support quality. No support evidence in sources
  • Security posture: 2/5. No public security page found
  • 10M+ Monthly readers Crunchbase estimate
  • Free Price Ad-supported news site
  • 730,992 LinkedIn followers Company page
  • 178K Instagram followers Official account

Pricing

Reader

Free

  • Full news site access
  • RSS feeds
  • Category pages for CVEs and breaches

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Reader sentiment is sparse in available sources, but commenters treat following it as an obvious default for security news.

“The Hacker News is kind of a no-brain”
Hacker News comment thread

Companies that use it

Full analysis

Based on ~30 public sources; mostly directory snippets, social profiles, and forum threads. This is a free media publication, not software.

Free, widely read cybersecurity news site. Great to follow, nothing to buy — and not YC's Hacker News.

Methodology

Based on ~30 public sources; mostly directory snippets, social profiles, and forum threads. This is a free media publication, not software.

Read how a report is made.

Sources

  1. The Hacker News — homepagethehackernews.com
    official
  2. Crunchbase — The Hacker News company profilecrunchbase.com
    news
  3. LinkedIn — The Hacker Newslinkedin.com
    official
  4. News.ycombinator thread clarifying the two 'Hacker News' sitesnews.ycombinator.com
    review
  5. Reddit r/cybersecurity — RSS feeds threadreddit.com
    review
  6. ThreatNG glossary — The Hacker News as monitored sourcethreatngsecurity.com
    official
  7. THN CVE news labelthehackernews.com
    official
  8. THN security page scanthehackernews.com
    security
  9. Instagram — The Hacker Newsinstagram.com
    official
  10. Cybersecurity Intelligence — THN profilecybersecurityintelligence.com
    news

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