Hacker News Top Stories 2020-2026

By shrijeetverma13 · May 9, 2026

100,286 Hacker News stories that earned at least 100 points, posted between January 1, 2020 and April 24, 2026. Pulled via the Algolia-hosted Hacker News…

The analysis identified the top 20 authors by cumulative score and submission count. A horizontal bar chart was generated showing each author's total score, with color coding indicating their number of submissions. Additionally, data tables were produced with the full breakdown of scores and submission counts for each author.

Two charts and supporting tables were generated to answer this question. For average story scores, neal.fun leads all qualified domains (with at least 20 stories) with an impressive average score of 842 across 23 stories. For total engagement (combined score + comments), github.com dominates with 2,374,707 total engagement points from 7,026 stories — by far the highest volume domain.

The analysis examined the top 1% of stories by score to identify common title keywords and domains. Three data tables were generated summarizing the findings. The results highlight which words appear most frequently in high-scoring story titles and which domains consistently produce viral content on the platform.

The dual-axis chart shows monthly submission volumes (bars) and average scores (line) from January 2020 through April 2026. Submissions peaked at 1,605 stories in March 2023 and dipped to a low of 1,008 in June 2025. Comparing the first and second halves of the period, average monthly submissions declined slightly from 1,376 to 1,263, while average scores actually improved from 260.9 to 268.9 — suggesting that while volume has softened, content quality has trended upward.

Score and number of comments have a moderate positive correlation of 0.623, meaning higher-scoring stories generally attract more comments — but the relationship is far from perfect. For every 1-point increase in score, you'd expect roughly 0.48 additional comments (baseline ~33). Two scatter plots and supporting data tables were generated to visualize this relationship and highlight stories that defy the pattern.

The analysis reveals clear patterns in when submissions are most active and score highest. Three charts were generated showing activity by day of week, by hour, and a full day-by-hour heatmap. Tuesday is the busiest day with 15,715 posts, while Wednesday edges it out for average score at 274.91. The peak submission hour is 3:00 PM UTC (6,906 posts), and scores are highest at 4:00 PM UTC (avg 282.73). The single best combination is Tuesday at 4:00 PM UTC, which averages a score of 310.4 — making mid-afternoon on Tuesdays the sweet spot for both volume and quality.

The analysis extracted top-level domains from the dataset and ranked the top 15 TLDs by story count. A grouped bar chart was generated comparing story volume (blue bars) against average score (orange bars) on a dual-axis layout, making it easy to spot which TLDs drive both volume and engagement. Data tables with the full breakdown are also available.

The analysis successfully produced three bar charts and two data tables breaking down Hacker News story submissions by day of the week and hour of the day. The first chart shows the total number of stories submitted each day (Monday through Sunday), the second compares average score and average comment count side-by-side for each day, and the third reveals submission volume across all 24 hours of the day (in UTC). The accompanying tables provide the detailed numeric breakdowns for both day-of-week and hour-of-day groupings, including story counts, average scores, and average comment counts.

Using the IQR method, extreme outlier stories were identified as those scoring above Q3 + 3×IQR = 804 points. The analysis found 2,960 such viral stories out of the full dataset. The IQR statistics show Q1=136, Q3=303, and IQR=167, making the extreme threshold 804. Two visualizations were generated: a horizontal bar chart showing the top 20 viral outlier stories colored by comment count, and a domain frequency chart showing which sources produced the most viral content among the top 20.

The analysis covers 100,286 stories from 2020 to 2026. Two visualizations were generated: a box plot showing score distributions per year, and a grouped bar chart comparing mean, median, and 90th percentile scores across years. Overall, scores declined slightly from 2020 to a trough in 2023, then rebounded strongly through 2025 and 2026. The year 2026 stands out with the highest mean (313), median (219), and 90th percentile (618), though it represents a partial year with ~5K stories. The lowest engagement period was 2023, with a mean of 251 and a 90th percentile of 452.