Blog Nov 7, 2026

Syften alternative: when Free Social Listening fits, and when it does not

If you are looking for a Syften alternative, the first question is what you need from it. Syften is a keyword monitoring tool with wide community coverage and fast alerts. Free Social Listening does a smaller job: it watches Reddit and X for your keywords and tells you when they appear.

Neither one is better for everyone. Here is how they differ, using the prices and limits each product publishes as of November 2026.

The short version

Choose Syften if you need alerts within minutes, or sources beyond Reddit and X.

Choose Free Social Listening if Reddit and X are where your buyers talk, you want both in one price, and a check every few hours is fast enough.

How they compare

Sources Syften covers the public web plus communities including Reddit, X, Hacker News, GitHub, Product Hunt, the Stack Exchange network, YouTube, Bluesky and Mastodon. Free Social Listening covers every subreddit and public posts on X.
LinkedIn Syften says it does not monitor LinkedIn. Here, LinkedIn is coming soon, so neither covers it today.
Alert speed Syften targets a delay of up to a minute on Reddit and up to 15 minutes on X. Free Social Listening checks every 6 hours on Starter and every hour on Pro.
X monitoring On Syften, X is a $40 a month add-on on the Standard and PRO plans. Here, X is included in Starter and Pro.
Volume Syften limits filters and results per day, from 3 community filters and 100 results a day on Entry to 100 community filters and 500 results a day on PRO. Free Social Listening limits keywords: 50 on Starter, unlimited on Pro.
Delivery Syften offers email, Slack, RSS, an API and webhooks, with Slack from Standard up and webhooks on PRO. Free Social Listening sends a daily email, plus Slack or a webhook after every check on paid plans.
Filtering Syften has AI filtering on Standard and PRO to remove spam, duplicates and weak matches. Free Social Listening shows the posts that use a keyword you chose.
History and export Syften offers archive search of 7 days on Entry, 30 days on Standard, and the full available history on PRO. Free Social Listening keeps every match in your mention history, and you can export it to CSV.

What it costs

Syften publishes three monthly plans, and custom plans above them:

Entry $29.95 a month
Standard $49.95 a month
PRO $119.95 a month

Free Social Listening has two published plans, and a custom Enterprise plan:

Starter $49 a month, plus any applicable tax
Pro $99 a month, plus any applicable tax

If you want Reddit and X with Slack alerts, Syften’s Standard plan with the X add-on comes to $89.95 a month for 20 community filters. Starter is $49 for 50 keywords. Syften’s PRO plan with the X add-on comes to $159.95 a month, and Pro is $99.

These numbers do not compare like for like. A Syften filter is a search query, so one filter may do the work of several keywords. And that price also buys Syften’s faster alerts and wider coverage.

How the trials differ

Syften offers a 14-day trial on its PRO plan, with no card required.

Free Social Listening has a 7-day trial and requires a card. You choose Starter or Pro, and you pay $49 or $99 a month, plus any applicable tax, unless you cancel at least 30 minutes before the trial ends. On either plan, the trial includes 50 keywords, 6-hour scans, Reddit and X.

If you cancel, you move to the free plan: Reddit or X, 3 keywords, a daily scan and email alerts. Syften does not list a permanent free plan. The pricing page has the full terms.

Who Syften suits better

Teams that need to be first. If replying within minutes matters, an hourly check will not match a one-minute target.
Developer tools and open source projects. Hacker News, GitHub, Stack Exchange, Lobste.rs and Dev.to are all in Syften’s coverage and not in ours.
Anyone tracking the public web. Syften also watches articles, blogs and documentation.
Teams building on the data. Syften offers an API, and an MCP connection on PRO.
Agencies. Syften lets you tag filters to keep clients separate.

Teams focused on Reddit and X. You get both in the plan price, on one keyword list.
Long keyword lists. Starter watches 50 keywords, and Pro has no keyword limit. See our sample list of buyer intent keywords for what a list like that can include.
People who want a CSV. Your matches export to CSV whenever you want them. Syften’s site does not mention CSV export, so check with them if you need it.
Anyone who wants to keep a small setup after cancelling. The free plan stays available for as long as you use it.

How to decide

List where your last ten good conversations happened. If they were all on Reddit and X, and a reply a few hours later would still have been useful, you may not need Syften’s wider coverage. If they were on Hacker News or a niche forum, or the thread would have gone cold within the hour, Syften is the better fit.

For more on what to look for, read our guide to Reddit listening tools. When you are ready, you can start a free trial here.