figures verified 2026-09-10

discatch vs Octolens

The product discatch is most directly measured against: keyword monitoring across social and developer sources with AI relevance scoring, an MCP server with 23 tools, a REST API with 52 OpenAPI paths, webhooks, an npm CLI, and 11 agent skills.

Feature	discatchthe plan	Octolensas of 2026-09-10
Built for agents first(partial: an MCP server exists but the product is dashboard-first)	yes	partial
MCP server	planned	yes
REST API and webhooks	yes	yes
Push that wakes an agent(calls your agent when a catch fires, instead of waiting to be polled)	yes	no
Waterfall coverage(several providers per source, cheapest first, merged)	yes	no
Pay per unit	yes	no
Query-time price quote	yes	no
Discourse forums	yes	Scale only
Relevance judged by your model(raw candidates plus a prescore by default)	yes	no
Never posts for you	yes	yes
Open playbooks(copyable scripts that plug into the API, published under MIT)	yes	no
Entry price	free, then units	$159/mo

What Octolens is

Marketed to developer-tool companies and pitched at Claude, Cursor, and Windsurf users. The homepage says "Social listening for the agent era."

Pricing: Pro $199/mo monthly, $159/mo annual: 15,000 mentions a month, 10 keywords, $10 per extra keyword, two years of history, hourly refresh.; Scale $599/mo monthly, $499/mo annual: 50,000 mentions, 40 keywords, $5 per extra keyword, unlimited history, real-time refresh, custom AI agents.; Overage $0.013 per mention on Pro, $0.01 on Scale, with a spend cap. Enterprise is custom.; A free agent tier offers 50 searches, no card, and the key never expires.; Price history: about $59/mo in 2024, about $119/mo in March 2026, $159/mo annual now. Pro rose 34 percent since March 2026.
Sources: X, LinkedIn, Reddit, Bluesky, GitHub, YouTube, DEV, Hacker News, Stack Overflow, TikTok on every plan. The Scale tier adds podcasts, news, web, and newsletters. Despite "15+ platforms on every plan" copy elsewhere, four sources are Scale-only.
Agent surface: An MCP server with 23 tools at app.octolens.com/api/mcp/v2, OAuth, listed on the official MCP registry. A 52-path OpenAPI 3.1 spec. An npm CLI. llms.txt, llms-full.txt, agent-permissions.json, and .well-known/mcp.json. 11 agent skills published on skills.sh.
Push: None to an agent. The MCP tools are pull; an agent has to poll get_mentions. Webhooks reach n8n or Zapier, and a command node after that is your problem.

Where Octolens wins today

Fifteen or more sources, shipped and working, with AI relevance scoring, sentiment, and tagging.
MCP, REST, and webhooks on every plan, including the cheapest.
A real customer base: claims $1.5M ARR in 2025, with logos such as Vercel, PostHog, Supabase, Railway, and Lovable, self-reported.
The most complete agent discovery kit in the category: llms.txt, llms-full.txt, mcp.json, openapi.json, agent-permissions.json, 11 skills, and a free 50-search tier for agents.

Where discatch differs

These are the plan. The roadmap says which phase each lands in.

No keyword limits. Octolens charges $10 per extra keyword on Pro; discatch does not charge per keyword because it punishes curiosity.
Push that wakes an agent. A catch calls your webhook, a Claude Code or Codex command, a Doozy todo, or a GitHub dispatch. Nothing to poll.
A quote before every call. The quote is a ceiling with locked unit prices; the charge never exceeds it.
Units instead of seats. Search, capture, result, alert, classify. An agent can buy one search with no subscription.
Sources reached through a waterfall of providers, cheapest and most accurate first. You see sources, never providers.
Relevance is your model’s job by default. Every result carries a free prescore; the classify flag is opt-in and priced.
Discourse forums are first class here, with per-forum watching by URL, instead of a Scale-tier add-on with no dedicated page.
Open-source clients under MIT. Octolens says its CLI and MCP server are open source, but the repo the npm package points to returns 404 on 2026-09-10.

Octolens pricing, dated

	Pro	Scale
Monthly	$199/mo	$599/mo
Annual	$159/mo	$499/mo
Mentions a month	15,000	50,000
Keywords	10	40
Extra keyword	$10/mo	$5/mo
Extra mention	$0.013	$0.01
History	2 years	unlimited
Refresh	hourly	real-time
Podcasts, news, web, newsletters	no	yes

Prices read from octolens.com/pricing and octolens.com/llms.txt on 2026-09-10.

A free agent tier offers 50 searches, no card, and the key never expires. Enterprise is custom. Overage is $0.013 per mention on Pro and $0.01 on Scale, with a spend cap.

Source by source

Octolens has pages for fifteen platforms and reaches Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and YouTube directly today. Podcasts, news, web, and newsletters are Scale-only despite "15+ platforms on every plan" copy elsewhere on the site. The platform count drifts across pages: "15+", "13+", "12+", "10+". The mcp.json file lists 14.

Octolens has no page and no first-class coverage for Discourse forums, Mastodon, or Product Hunt. The /product-hunt-monitoring URL redirects to the homepage. discatch reads Discourse forums directly and by URL today. Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt are planned. Reddit, X, and LinkedIn are reserved until a cleared path exists.

For an agent

Octolens has the most complete agent discovery kit in the category on 2026-09-10. It ships llms.txt, llms-full.txt, a .well-known/mcp.json with 23 tools, a 52-path OpenAPI 3.1 spec, agent-permissions.json, an npm CLI, and 11 agent skills published on skills.sh. It is listed on the official MCP registry.

The MCP server is pull-only. An agent polls get_mentions; nothing wakes the agent when a new mention arrives. Webhooks reach n8n or Zapier. The FAQ on octolens.com/agents says the CLI and MCP server are open source, but the repo the npm package points to returns 404 on 2026-09-10. Prices are hard-coded in llms.txt and agent-permissions.json and will drift the moment pricing changes.

discatch’s REST API and trial keys work today. The MCP server with OAuth is planned for roadmap phase 3. Catches push to a webhook, a Claude Code command, or a Doozy todo. The clients are MIT.

What Octolens does not have

No "Octolens vs X" pages. All six head-to-head pages on the site are third-party pairs like Brand24 vs Brandwatch.
No pages for Discourse, Mastodon, or Product Hunt. The /product-hunt-monitoring URL redirects to the homepage.
No /about page, no /changelog, no /security, no /status.
No visible bylines on blog posts despite 34 of 35 being by the CEO.
No glossary section. Definitions are buried in listicles.

Questions

Is discatch cheaper than Octolens?

For most developers and agents, yes by design: units are fractions of a cent and the free tier covers free sources. A team that needs 50,000 mentions a month across every source will price differently; run a quote and compare it to $159 or $499 a month on annual billing.

Does discatch cover the same sources as Octolens?

Not yet. Today discatch reaches web, news, Hacker News, Discourse forums, Stack Exchange, and GitHub. Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and Product Hunt are planned. Reddit, X, and LinkedIn arrive through the web index and are reserved until a direct path exists. Octolens covers Reddit, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and YouTube directly today.

Can I move my Octolens keywords over?

The query language is the same shape: quotes, AND, OR, NOT, site:, author:, lang:. Each keyword becomes a catch, and catches are not limited or priced per keyword.

Does Octolens push mentions to an agent?

No. The MCP tools are pull-only. Webhooks reach n8n or Zapier, but nothing wakes an agent directly. discatch catches push to a webhook, a Claude Code command, a Codex command, a Doozy todo, or a GitHub dispatch.

Is the Octolens MCP server open source?

The FAQ on octolens.com/agents says yes, but the GitHub repo the npm package points to returns 404 on 2026-09-10. The public org has no CLI or MCP source repo. discatch’s clients are MIT.

What does Octolens charge for extra keywords?

$10 per month per extra keyword on Pro, $5 on Scale, as of 2026-09-10. discatch does not charge per keyword. A catch costs its firing units, not its existence.

Does Octolens have a free tier?

A free agent tier offers 50 searches with no card and the key never expires. There is no free monitoring tier. discatch’s free tier includes standing catches on free sources at one hour or slower.

Which sources are Scale-only on Octolens?

Podcasts, news, web, and newsletters require the $499/mo annual Scale plan on 2026-09-10. The "15+ platforms on every plan" copy elsewhere on the site is only true at Scale.

Try it yourself

The fairest comparison is a quote for your own query against what Octolens costs you. A quote is free and needs no key.

curl

curl -X POST https://api.discatch.com/v1/quote -d '{ "query": "\"your product\"", "sources": ["hackernews", "discourse", "web"], "since": "7d" }'

MCP · coming in phase 3

{
  "tool": "quote",
  "arguments": {
    "query": "\"your product\"",
    "sources": [
      "hackernews",
      "discourse",
      "web"
    ],
    "since": "7d"
  }
}

Last reviewed 2026-09-10 by Parsa Khazaeepoul, founder, dcouple. Octolens facts read on 2026-09-10 from octolens.com/pricing, octolens.com/llms.txt, octolens.com/mcp, octolens.com/agents, octolens.com/.well-known/mcp.json. Research: docs/seo/competitor-map.md.