An Octolens alternative, compared honestly
Octolens and Nephia both watch X, Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, GitHub and YouTube for your brand, and both hand the mentions to your own code through an API, webhooks and MCP.
Octolens covers LinkedIn, podcasts and newsletters, which Nephia does not; Nephia counts no mentions, asks the AI engines your market’s question, and starts cheaper.
The table below puts the two side by side, with the date and page every Octolens figure was read from.
Nephia and Octolens, line by line
| Nephia | Octolens | |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | 14 sources, plus any site with an RSS feed. No LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram | 15+ platforms, including LinkedIn, TikTok, DEV, Stack Overflow, podcasts and newslettersas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com |
| Fastest check | Every minute on Pro | Hourly on Pro. Scale and Enterprise are described as “real-time”, with no check interval statedas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com/pricing |
| Entry price | Solo at $19 a month at launch, free during the beta | Pro, $159 a month billed annuallyas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com/pricing |
| Mentions per month | Never capped: credits meter the checks, not what they find | 15,000 on Pro, then billed per extra mentionas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com/pricing |
| API, webhooks, MCP | REST API, signed webhooks and an MCP server on every plan, Free included | REST API, webhooks and MCP on every planas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com |
| AI answers | ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity as a source, 100 credits per engine per run | Not found on its siteas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com |
| Reply inbox | Replies to your own X posts, each under its thread, answered from Nephia | No reply inbox found on its siteas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com |
| Without paying | Free during the public beta: Solo's limits and 20,000 credits a month, no card | A 7-day trial with Pro features, up to 5,000 mentionsas of 2026-09-15, octolens.com/pricing |
Octolens figures are as published on its own pages on the date shown, and may have changed since.
What Octolens does better
- LinkedIn, podcasts and newsletters
- Octolens lists all three; Nephia reads none of them. If your buyers talk on LinkedIn, that settles it.
- Agent Skills
- Ready-made playbooks, such as turning mentions into Linear issues or a competitor report, on top of its MCP server.
Where Nephia is different
- No mention count
- A plan sets how many queries you run and how often they are checked. A launch week that triples your mentions costs the same.
- AI answers as a source
- A Watch asks ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your market’s question on a schedule, and records whether they name you.
- A lower first step
- Solo is $19 a month at launch, and free during the public beta.
Questions
Is Nephia cheaper than Octolens?
At the entry level, yes: Solo is $19 a month, against $159 a month billed annually for Octolens Pro, as published on 2026-09-15. Octolens includes more platforms at that price, so compare on the sources you actually need.
Does Nephia monitor LinkedIn like Octolens?
No. LinkedIn has no public search and blocks automated reading, so a Watch on it would come back empty. If LinkedIn is where your buyers are, Octolens covers it.
How do I move my keywords over?
There is no importer. A Query takes your keywords as terms, several per search on the sources that allow it, and its first run backfills what the sources already hold, so the feed is not empty on day one.