Quick picks: what are you doing?
- You want to know when people mention your brand, and you or a teammate will reply: F5Bot, free for 5 keywords.
- You monitor for a business and need Slack, instant alerts or AI filtering: F5Bot Gold, $49.99 a month.
- You want comments written and posted every day without anyone on your team doing it: CommunityMentions, $1,000 a month after a $1 setup charge.
- You want to read what we'd post before deciding: the free sample, first comments in about 2 minutes.
- You want to see other monitoring tools side by side: F5Bot alternatives.
Line by line: what each one does
F5Bot's column comes from its tiers and home pages, read November 10, 2026. Ours comes from our pricing section, our company facts and our delivery database.
| CommunityMentions (ours) | F5Bot | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Comments placed for you, with a daily report | Alerts when your keywords appear |
| Price | $1,000 a month after a $1 setup charge | Free; $12.99, $49.99 or $214.99 a month; Diamond from $500 |
| Contract | Month-to-month; billing starts only after you approve the setup in Slack | Monthly or yearly plans, with one month free on yearly |
| Who finds the threads | We do, from your site and the filters you approve | F5Bot matches the keywords you enter; AI filtering on Gold and up |
| Who writes the reply | AI, in a voice you approve in Slack | You |
| Who posts it | People with established accounts | You, from your own account |
| Platforms | Reddit, YouTube, Medium, LinkedIn, X | Reddit, Hacker News, Lobsters |
| Volume | We aim for 5 to 10 comments a day across all five channels combined. Delivered: a median of 49 verified placements per brand in 30 days, 9 on Reddit (middle half 2 to 123) | Up to 200 keywords and 5,000 alerts a day on Gold |
| Speed | Daily, once the voice is approved | Up to 2 hours on Free, up to 5 minutes on Silver, instant on Gold and up |
| Reporting | A daily Slack report linking every comment that passed our same-day check and counting those removed before it | Email alerts; RSS and JSON feeds on Gold and up |
| Slack | Approval and reports happen there | 1 integration on Gold, 3 on Platinum |
| API or MCP | MCP server for subreddit data | API and webhooks on Platinum and up; none on Gold |
| Tells you about every mention of your brand | No | Yes, within its plan limits |
| How you start | Free sample, no card | Free account, email only |
What do 12 months cost on each?
A year of F5Bot Gold costs $599.88 month by month, or $549 on its yearly plan. A year of CommunityMentions is 12 months at $1,000 plus the $1 setup charge, $12,001 in all. The gap is the price of someone doing the work. F5Bot's total leaves out the hours you spend reading alerts and writing replies, and only you know what those hours cost.
| Plan | 1 month | 12 months, paid monthly | 12 months, yearly plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| F5Bot Free | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| F5Bot Silver (personal use) | $12.99 | $155.88 | $143 |
| F5Bot Gold | $49.99 | $599.88 | $549 |
| F5Bot Platinum | $214.99 | $2,579.88 | $2,364 |
| CommunityMentions (ours) | $1,001 | $12,001 | No yearly plan |
What does an alert leave for you to do?
An alert ends where the work starts: someone has to open the thread, decide if it's worth answering, check the subreddit's rules and write something useful. In 84 finished samples from our site form between September 17 and November 4, 2026, the median run found 528 conversations and kept 35 as relevant, roughly 1 in 15 (the ratio of two medians). Those runs search by topic and use our own scoring, so treat it as a guide to the filtering involved. F5Bot's AI filtering on Gold and Platinum takes on the first part. The reading and writing stay with you.
What recent delivery looks like
In the 30 days from October 7 to November 5, 2026, the median of 55 client brands got 49 verified placements across Reddit, YouTube, Medium, LinkedIn and X, 9 of them on Reddit. The 25th percentile was 2 and the 75th percentile 123. That count includes brands that started or paused partway through the window. F5Bot would be the better buy for a brand that only wants Reddit and is willing to do the replying.
Can you use both?
Yes, and they don't overlap much. F5Bot's free plan can watch your brand name and competitors on Reddit and Hacker News, while CommunityMentions places comments in threads about your category. We don't send an alert for each mention of your brand, so a founder who wants to answer complaints personally should keep an alert tool running either way.
Where F5Bot wins
- Price: free for 5 keywords, and $49.99 a month for 200.
- Hacker News and Lobsters, which we don't cover.
- Every reply comes from you, in your own words and on your own account.
- You hear about each mention of your brand, which we don't report.
- Running since 2017, by its own count.
Where CommunityMentions wins
- Nobody on your team has to read alerts or write replies.
- It works on YouTube, Medium, LinkedIn and X as well as Reddit.
- You read a free sample of the comments before paying anything.
- A daily Slack report links every comment that passed our same-day check and counts those removed before it.
How we compared
F5Bot's plans come from its tiers page and its home page, read November 10, 2026. We did not buy a paid F5Bot plan. Our numbers come from our delivery database and run logs. If F5Bot's page says something different now, its page wins.
Sources
- F5Bot account tiers, F5Bot home and F5Bot about, read November 10, 2026.
- CommunityMentions delivery database, verified placements October 7 to November 5, 2026, read November 6, 2026.
- CommunityMentions run logs: 84 finished samples from the site form, September 17 to November 4, 2026.
- Our price and terms: pricing section and company facts, read November 10, 2026.