# A Mention.com alternative for developers who ship side projects

> Track your project's name on Reddit, X and the web, watch upstream changelog pages, and send the alerts to Slack, Discord or your own webhook.

URL: https://claudegpt.si/news/mention-com-alternative-for-developers  
Published: 2026-10-25T18:52:19.130Z  
Updated: 2026-10-26T07:07:29.427Z  
Author: ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom  
Section: Guides  
Topics: Mention, Developer tools, Brand monitoring  
Publisher: ClaudeGPT Si

## Key takeaways

- Mention's current plan is sold through a demo and charges extra for API access, which is heavy for a side project.
- AyeWatch monitors topics, webpages and social sources from a plain-English description and sends summarized alerts.
- Paid AyeWatch plans from $9 a month include Slack, Discord, HMAC-signed webhooks and a REST API.

A lot of developers used Mention the same way: one alert on a side project's name, maybe one on a library they maintain, and an email when someone posted about it. That setup got harder after Agorapulse bought Mention in 2025 and the small self-serve plans gave way to a single Company plan sold through a demo. This guide is about picking a Mention.com alternative for developers, where the goal is to hear about your project on Reddit, X and the web without wading through noise, and to get the alert where you already work.

## What developers actually need from mention tracking

Brand teams want dashboards. Developers usually want three things:

1. **Signal, not volume.** A post saying "this CLI broke my build after the update" matters. A bot reposting your README does not.
2. **Coverage of where devs talk.** Subreddits, X threads, YouTube walkthroughs, blogs, forums, plus a few specific pages like a dependency's changelog.
3. **Delivery into tools.** Slack, Discord or a webhook you can wire into an issue tracker.

Mention's current plan targets a different buyer. It is strong on sentiment, share of voice, influence scores and review sites, and its API is a paid add-on. That is a lot of spend for "tell me when someone hits a bug in my repo".

## The pick: AyeWatch

[AyeWatch](https://ayewatch.ai) fits this job well because you describe a monitor in a sentence instead of a keyword query. AI reads new items and matches on meaning, then sends a short summary with source links. Here is how a developer setup looks.

### Monitor 1: your project's name, with a plain filter

> Posts about the open-source tool "quickfetch" on Reddit, X or blogs: bug reports, comparisons with other tools, or people asking how to use it. Skip job ads and unrelated uses of the word.

The last line does the work a long NOT list used to do. If your project shares a name with a common word, say so and AyeWatch will judge context.

### Monitor 2: a subreddit

Point a social monitor at the subreddit where your users hang out and add a filter like "threads where someone recommends or complains about quickfetch or its rivals". AyeWatch also supports X profiles, YouTube channels, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.

### Monitor 3: a page that affects you

Paste the URL of an upstream dependency's release notes, a platform's API terms page or a competitor's pricing page. AyeWatch tells you when a meaningful detail changes instead of flagging every layout tweak.

## Wiring alerts into your tools

Every plan, including the free preview, gets the in-app feed and push notifications on iOS and Android. Paid plans add:

- email and a daily digest email
- Slack and Discord
- webhooks signed with HMAC-SHA256, carrying a `topic.update` event with an AI summary
- the REST API to create, list, update and delete monitors from code

So a Discord channel for community chatter and a webhook that opens a GitHub issue for bug reports takes little setup. Channels are picked per monitor.

## What it costs

| Plan | Price | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free Preview | $0 | 3 lifetime runs, up to 3 topics, Daily or slower, no card |
| Paid plans | From $9/mo | REST API, webhooks, email, Slack and Discord |

For a side project, a daily or Auto schedule is usually enough; Auto checks more often while a topic is busy and backs off when it is quiet.

## Other options worth a look

- **Talkwalker Alerts**: free email keyword alerts from news, X, blogs and forums. Fine for a unique name, noisy for a common one.
- **Awario**: Boolean listening from $29 a month billed yearly for three topics, if you prefer writing queries.
- **Brand24**: full listening with sentiment, from $199 a month billed yearly, with API access at $149 extra.

## When Mention still makes sense

If your project has grown into a company with a marketing team that needs sentiment trends, review-site tracking and branded reports, Mention's Company plan covers that. For a developer who wants the right alert in the right channel, [start an AyeWatch preview](https://ayewatch.ai/?signup=true) with your project name and see what comes back.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I track mentions of my open-source project?

Create a monitor that names the project and says what to skip in plain words, then add a subreddit monitor for the community where your users talk.

### Can I send alerts to Discord or a webhook?

Yes, on paid AyeWatch plans. Channels are set per monitor, and webhooks carry a signed topic.update event with a summary.

### Is there a free way to track my project's name?

Talkwalker Alerts sends free keyword emails. AyeWatch's Free Preview gives three lifetime runs with no card.

## Sources

- [AyeWatch features and FAQ](https://ayewatch.ai/), AyeWatch
- [Mention pricing](https://mention.com/en/pricing/), Mention
- [AyeWatch vs Mention](https://ayewatch.ai/vs/mention), AyeWatch
- [Talkwalker Alerts](https://www.talkwalker.com/alerts), Talkwalker
- [Awario pricing](https://awario.com/pricing/), Awario
- [Brand24 pricing and plans](https://brand24.com/prices/), Brand24