6/25/2026 at 4:34:27 PM
I host a publicly open database with Hacker News data at https://play.clickhouse.com/play?user=play#U0VMRUNUICogRlJPT...So you can create any sort of similar services in a single SQL query and an HTML page.
I also hosted it as a publicly accessible data lake, which you can query from everywhere: https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/issues/29693#issuec...
It is also updated in real-time.
by zX41ZdbW
6/26/2026 at 7:05:59 PM
This is awesome!I do want to point out that the data in that ClickHouse playground only seems to go as far back as April 6, 2024 according to the query below:
SELECT * FROM hackernews_history ORDER BY update_time ASC LIMIT 10
This is of course still extremely useful, and generous! It just wasn't obvious from the comment that this isn't querying against all Hacker News data.
by jstrieb
6/25/2026 at 5:02:37 PM
Thank you for providing this, you are a hero!!! I'm gonna try to do cool stuff with it!by linmer
6/25/2026 at 5:01:41 PM
It probably also got swamped in real-time...by tgv
6/25/2026 at 5:14:50 PM
Do you mean it's not updated? You gotta sort by update_time column. Looks sorted, but you gotta sort it with a query like:SELECT * FROM hackernews_history
ORDER BY update_time DESC
LIMIT 100;
And yeah, I got that from deepseek because I don't have a brain.
by linmer
6/25/2026 at 5:09:13 PM
oh hey, per HN terms and conditions I license my HN data only to HN. Can you please remove my data from the set? Thank you!by GeoAtreides
6/25/2026 at 5:24:35 PM
Not sure if joking, but if this product is not republishing the text of your contributions (to which you hold copyright), you’re probably not going to convince a court to do anything here.Generally speaking it is not a violation to scrape, index, and analyze web content as long as you don’t republish copyrighted content without a license, or violate access controls. For example: search engine indexes.
by snowwrestler
6/25/2026 at 5:14:07 PM
By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute, store, modify and otherwise use your User Content for any Y Combinator-related purpose in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed.@zX41ZdbW, you can safely ignore this guy.
@GeoAtreides, next time read the actual terms of service before hallucinating.
by moralestapia
6/25/2026 at 5:23:33 PM
> for any Y Combinator-related purposeThat is actually the key phrase. HN can provide the API, no problem. People can consume the API, no problem.. But I'd ask an attorney if API consumers can then re-release the data for purposes not related to YC. By my reading, they cannot.
by codingdave
6/25/2026 at 5:26:03 PM
You might want to read it again, then:by moralestapia
6/25/2026 at 5:26:37 PM
That is about the software, not the data.by codingdave
6/25/2026 at 5:42:18 PM
While a literal reading of the MIT license refers to "software", many datasets have been released under it.In particular, if someone releases something that is only a dataset along with an MIT license file, the most reasonable interpretation is that the rights holder intended to release the data under the terms of that license.
I looked for copyright cases involving this specific distinction, whether "data" versus "software" makes a legal difference, but didn’t find anything.
So the question remains open (for you, for me it's pretty clear the dataset is released under MIT).
You might want to sue and find out. It sounds like an interesting experiment.
by moralestapia
6/25/2026 at 8:44:20 PM
What exactly is released under MIT license?by nairboon
6/25/2026 at 5:16:43 PM
>Y Combinator and its affiliated companiesis zX41ZdbW either?
by GeoAtreides
6/25/2026 at 5:17:38 PM
Oh, now I see my comment might be a bit harsh.I didn't consider you might now know about:
by moralestapia
6/25/2026 at 5:21:43 PM
yes, and per HN terms and conditions only YC and YC affiliated (as you quoted) can use the api legally. I don't license my content to anyone else and so it shouldn't be use by anyone else, even if it's available on a free-for-all API (nice move HN, btw).by GeoAtreides
6/25/2026 at 5:23:17 PM
https://github.com/HackerNews/API/blob/master/LICENSEIt's right there, you just have to click the link I shared ...
by moralestapia
6/25/2026 at 5:31:54 PM
that's the license for the API, not the content/data the API servesby GeoAtreides
6/25/2026 at 5:55:21 PM
>including without limitation the rights to use'use'...arguably the sole purpose of the API is to fetch the data.
You are grasping at straws.
by jupr
6/25/2026 at 5:36:02 PM
[dead]by fartcoin67
6/25/2026 at 8:40:59 PM
Steve Carrell yelling “I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!!” in The Office dot gifby jrflowers
6/25/2026 at 5:10:19 PM
You must be fun at partiesby pelagicAustral
6/25/2026 at 5:19:42 PM
Wait, so I have to ask for every single person's permissions to use this data?uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
by linmer