8 Best Google Alerts Alternatives (Free and Paid)

TL;DR: Google Alerts only tells you about pages that show up in Google Search, so it misses most social posts and a lot of forum talk. For a free swap, use Talkwalker Alerts for the web and news and F5Bot for Reddit and Hacker News. Pay for Syften, Awario or Octolens when you need more sources, filters and speed.

The best Google Alerts alternatives depend on what Google Alerts is missing for you. If you want the same kind of keyword email with more sources, Talkwalker Alerts is the closest free replacement. If the mentions you care about happen on Reddit or Hacker News, F5Bot is free and checks every few minutes. If you need dozens of communities in one feed, Syften starts at $29.95 a month. If you are watching a page rather than a keyword (a competitor's pricing page, a changelog), Visualping does that, free for 5 pages. Paid social listening suites (Awario, Octolens, Brand24) cover social networks Google Alerts never touches, at $29 to $249 a month for a starter plan. Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on November 12, 2026.

Why does Google Alerts miss mentions?

Google Alerts misses mentions because it is a search alert, not a monitor. Google's help page says it sends emails "when new results for a topic show up in Google Search" (Google Search Help). A mention has to be crawled, indexed and selected as a result before you hear about it. Anything Google doesn't index, or indexes late, never reaches your inbox.

1Someone mentions you

2Google crawls the page

3Page is indexed

4It ranks as a new result

5Alert email

If any step fails or runs late, the alert never arrives.

Three settings make it worse by default. Open google.com/alerts and click "Show options" and you will see:

• How many: "Only the best results" or "All results". The default trims what you get.
• Sources: Automatic, News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions, Finance. There is no source for X, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok.
• How often: As-it-happens, at most once a day, or at most once a week.

If you know people mentioned you and Google Alerts sent nothing, check the first two settings and remember the indexing delay. Set "All results" and "As-it-happens" before you give up on it. If the mentions you want live on social platforms or in fresh Reddit comments, no setting will fix it.

Is Google Alerts still working in 2026?

Yes. Google Alerts still works: the form at google.com/alerts is live with the options above, and Google still maintains a help page for it. When alerts stop arriving, Google's own fixes are to check which Google account you are signed into, click "Enable" if it says your alerts have been disabled, make sure your inbox is not full, and add googlealerts-noreply@google.com to your contacts so the emails skip spam (Google Search Help).

It is still worth keeping as a free backup for news and blog coverage. It just shouldn't be the only thing watching your brand.

How we judged these alternatives

We picked tools for the gaps Google Alerts leaves, not for the length of their feature lists:

1. Sources: does it see what Google Alerts misses (Reddit comments, Hacker News, X, forums, page changes)?
2. Speed: how soon after a post does the alert arrive?
3. Filtering: Boolean operators, exclusions, subreddit filters or AI filtering, so a common brand name doesn't flood you.
4. Price for a small team: the cheapest plan that tracks a handful of keywords, from the vendor's pricing page.
5. Delivery: email, Slack, RSS, webhooks or API.

We left out tools whose pricing page wouldn't show us a price, because we only list prices we could read ourselves.

Google Alerts alternatives compared, and which to choose

To choose, start from where the mentions you are missing actually happen:

1. News and blogs only: keep Google Alerts, add Talkwalker Alerts, both free.
2. Reddit and Hacker News: F5Bot free; Syften when you need filtering and Slack.
3. Many communities (GitHub, Slack groups, forums, podcasts): Syften.
4. A specific page changing: Visualping.
5. Social networks with reports for a boss or client: Awario on a budget, Brand24 or Octolens with a bigger one.
6. Reddit threads where people ask for a tool like yours: BoomReddit.

A simple setup for a small team is two tools: one free web alert and one community monitor. Our social media mentions tracker guide walks through setting that up.

1. Talkwalker Alerts

Talkwalker Alerts is the best free alternative to Google Alerts if you want the same experience, a keyword in, an email out, with more sources. It is free and Talkwalker says it is used by over 600,000 people (Talkwalker).

• What it covers: news, blogs, discussion forums and X (Twitter), in 22 languages.
• Best for: anyone replacing Google Alerts one for one, PR people, job seekers watching companies.
• Pricing: free.
• What we checked: alerts go to any email address, not just a Google account, and can also be delivered by RSS or Slack. Queries take Boolean AND, AND NOT and OR, with brackets, such as Apple AND (iPhone OR iPad).
• Limits: Talkwalker's own comparison table says Google Alerts has "no option to filter result source". That is out of date: the current Google Alerts form has a Sources menu. Treat vendor comparisons, including this one, with some suspicion. It also keeps the same "only the best results" filter, so pick "All results" if you need everything.

2. F5Bot

F5Bot is the best free tool for Reddit and Hacker News mentions, the two places Google Alerts is weakest. It watches Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters posts and comments and checks every few minutes (F5Bot).

• Best for: founders, developers and open-source projects whose users talk on Reddit and HN.
• Pricing: free plan with keyword alerts, email notifications and basic filters. Silver is $12.99 a month for 20 keywords, for individuals and non-commercial use. Gold is $49.99 a month for 200 keywords, RSS and JSON feeds, AI filtering and Slack or Discord.
• What we checked: it has run since 2017 and says it delivers more than 430,000 alerts a day. Filters cover subreddits, excluded terms and keywords that must appear together.
• Limits: three sites only. A common word as a brand name produces noise until you add filters, and commercial use needs Gold. Our F5Bot alternatives page covers when people outgrow it.

3. Syften

Syften is the pick when your mentions are spread across many communities rather than one. It monitors Reddit, Hacker News, Stack Exchange, GitHub, Indie Hackers, Slack communities, podcasts, Bluesky, Mastodon and the public web (Syften pricing).

• Best for: SaaS and developer-tool teams who want community mentions in Slack.
• Pricing: Entry $29.95 a month (3 community filters, 1 web filter). Standard $49.95 a month (20 community filters, 5 web filters, AI filtering, Slack). PRO $119.95 a month (100 community filters, full archive search, webhooks, MCP). X monitoring is a $40 a month add-on and YouTube $20.
• What we checked: Syften says it aims for at most a 1-minute delay on Reddit, and a 14-day trial shows who mentioned you in the last 60 days, which is a quick way to see what Google Alerts has been missing.
• Limits: a "filter" is one search query, so 3 filters on Entry goes fast if you track a brand plus two competitors. Compare it in more depth on our Syften alternatives page.

4. Visualping

Visualping is the alternative for a different job: telling you when a specific page changes, which Google Alerts cannot do at all (Visualping pricing).

• Best for: watching a competitor's pricing page, a changelog, a terms-of-service page or a job board.
• Pricing: free for 5 pages and 150 checks a month, checked at most every 60 minutes. Personal 1K is $14 a month ($120 a year) for 10 pages, 1,000 checks and checks every 15 minutes.
• What we checked: the free plan includes email and webhook alerts, AI change summaries and an "important or not" flag on each change. Slack alerts start on Business plans ($140 a month).
• Limits: it watches pages you name. It will not find a new page that mentions you.

5. BoomReddit

BoomReddit (our product) is the alternative when the mentions you want are Reddit threads where someone is asking for what you sell. Google Alerts and most monitors send every keyword match; it ranks each thread by buying intent and flags threads that already rank on Google or get cited in AI answers, so you see the ones worth answering first.

• Best for: SaaS founders, startups and agencies who use Reddit to find customers, not just to track their name.
• Pricing: Scanner is $19 a month: unlimited sites, 24/7 scanning, buying-intent scores, Google and AI ranking flags, competitor mention tracking and a daily digest. You post the replies yourself. Autopilot ($99 a month) adds replies drafted in your voice that you approve, with an option to post within daily caps.
• Limits: Reddit only. It is not a general web or news monitor, so pair it with Talkwalker Alerts or Google Alerts for press coverage.

If Reddit is where your buyers ask for recommendations, start free, no card. Setup takes about 3 minutes from your product URL.

6. Awario

Awario is the cheapest full social listening tool on this list. It finds mentions across social networks and the web, and every topic can hold unlimited keywords (Awario pricing).

• Best for: small brands and freelancers who want social coverage plus reports without an enterprise budget.
• Pricing: Starter is $49 a month billed monthly or $29 a month billed yearly: 3 topics, 30,000 new mentions a month, 5,000 stored mentions per topic, 1 user. Pro is $149 monthly or $89 yearly. Enterprise is $399 monthly or $249 yearly.
• What we checked: the free trial gives you Starter access, so you can test 3 topics before paying. Mentions export to CSV and reports export to PDF.
• Limits: one seat on Starter. A topic is a group of keywords, so plan topics (brand, competitor, industry) before you start.

7. Octolens

Octolens is built for developer and B2B brands that need many platforms with AI filtering. It covers Reddit, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Overflow, DEV, and App Store, Google Play and Trustpilot reviews (Octolens pricing).

• Best for: teams that want mentions routed to Slack, webhooks or their own agents.
• Pricing: Pro is $159 a month billed yearly for 10 keywords and 15,000 mentions, refreshed hourly. Scale is $499 a month billed yearly and adds podcasts, news, newsletters and the web.
• What we checked: API, webhooks and an MCP server come with every plan. Mentions over your quota keep coming and cost $0.013 each on Pro, so set the spend cap.
• Limits: no free plan (7-day trial, no card), and the entry price is five times Syften's.

8. Brand24

Brand24 is the most complete marketing-team option here and the most expensive to start. It covers Facebook, Instagram, X, news, blogs, Reddit, LinkedIn and more, with AI sentiment analysis on every plan (Brand24 pricing).

• Best for: marketing and PR teams that report share of voice and sentiment to someone.
• Pricing: Individual is $249 a month, or $199 a month billed yearly, for 3 keywords, 2,000 mentions a month and 1 user. Team is $349 monthly or $299 yearly for 7 keywords, 10,000 mentions and hourly updates. 14-day free trial.
• What we checked: the Individual plan updates every 12 hours. That is slower than F5Bot or Syften, so it is not the tool for replying to a thread while it is fresh.
• Limits: price. Three keywords for $199 or more a month only makes sense if you use the reports.

Cheapest plan for about 3 tracked topics

Tool	Plan	Per month	Limit
Talkwalker Alerts	Free	$0	Alerts by email, RSS, Slack
F5Bot	Free	$0	Reddit, HN, Lobsters
Syften	Entry	$29.95	3 community filters
Awario	Starter (yearly)	$29	3 topics
Brand24	Individual (yearly)	$199	3 keywords

Prices from each vendor's pricing page, checked November 12, 2026.

Which tools track Reddit mentions?

F5Bot, Syften, Octolens, Brand24 and BoomReddit all track Reddit mentions; Talkwalker Alerts and Google Alerts only catch Reddit threads their index happens to pick up. The difference is what they do with a match:

• F5Bot emails you every match, free, within minutes.
• Syften filters matches (including AI filtering on Standard and up) and sends them to Slack or webhooks.
• Octolens and Brand24 fold Reddit into a wider social listening dashboard.
• BoomReddit ranks Reddit threads by buying intent and flags the ones ranking on Google.

One change most "Google Alerts alternatives" lists miss: Reddit's RSS feeds end on November 13, 2026, and Reddit stopped accepting new requests for public Data API access on October 31, 2026 (Reddit changelog, October 8, 2026). If your homemade alert is a Reddit search RSS feed piped into a reader, IFTTT or Zapier, it stops working. Our Reddit API explainer covers what replaced public API access, and our Reddit monitoring guide covers the options that still work.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free alternative to Google Alerts?

Talkwalker Alerts is the best free alternative for the web, news and X, because it works like Google Alerts but adds sources, Boolean operators and RSS or Slack delivery. For Reddit and Hacker News, F5Bot's free plan is better, since it checks those sites every few minutes.

Why am I not getting Google Alerts emails?

Usually because nothing new reached Google Search, or because the alert is set to "Only the best results". Google also suggests checking the signed-in account, re-enabling disabled alerts, clearing a full inbox and adding googlealerts-noreply@google.com to your contacts.

Does Google Alerts monitor social media?

No. Its sources are News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions and Finance. Posts on X, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok only show up if Google indexes them as a regular web result. Use Talkwalker Alerts (for X) or a social listening tool for social media.

Can Google Alerts track Reddit?

Only partly. Reddit threads can appear under the Discussions or Web sources once Google indexes them, but new comments rarely do and nothing arrives in real time. A Reddit monitor such as F5Bot or Syften catches posts and comments within minutes.

Is there a Google Alerts alternative for website changes?

Yes. Visualping watches a page you choose and emails you when it changes, free for 5 pages. Google Alerts only finds new pages that match a keyword, so it can't tell you that an existing page was edited.

How much do Google Alerts alternatives cost?

Talkwalker Alerts and F5Bot's basic plan are free. Paid tools start at $14 a month (Visualping), $19 (BoomReddit Scanner), $29.95 (Syften) and $29 billed yearly (Awario), and go up to $159 (Octolens) and $199 (Brand24) a month billed yearly.