Hacker News story title character counter
Hacker News submission titles are kept to 80 characters and the guidelines ask submitters to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait. The title is what appears in dense ranked lists, so every space, word, punctuation mark, and bracketed clarification competes with the source name, points, and comment count.
Hacker News story title character limit
The 80-character cap keeps story lists compact and discourages rewritten promotional titles. It pushes submitters toward direct, source-faithful headlines.
Examples
Counts use plain character lengthSQLite on the server: lessons from moving a SaaS app off Postgres
SQLite on the server: lessons from moving a growing SaaS app off Postgres and rethinking every assumption
Show HN: A tiny local tool for cleaning pasted text
Show HN: A tiny local tool for cleaning pasted text from Docs, email, CMS exports, and old notes
HN title character limit FAQ
- How many characters are allowed in HN title?
- HN title has a 80-character limit.
- Why does Hacker News story title have a character limit?
- The 80-character cap keeps story lists compact and discourages rewritten promotional titles. It pushes submitters toward direct, source-faithful headlines.
- Do spaces count toward the HN title limit?
- Yes, spaces count toward character limits on all major platforms.
- What happens if I exceed the HN title limit?
- The platform usually rejects the title or truncates it. Use the counter above to stay safely under 80 characters.