Firehose: Monitor the Web in Real Time for What Matters

Author: Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. | Published: Unknown | Generated: 2026-06-09 | Domain: firehose.com
Tags: ‘#webmonitoring’ ‘#realtimenotifications’ ‘#competitiveintelligence’ ‘#ahrefs’ ‘#api’

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TLDR

Firehose monitors the web in real time, notifying users as soon as crawled pages match custom rules for keywords, sites, languages, page types, authority, recency, and more. Its Stream mode finds matching content across millions of pages, while URL Watch detects changes on known pages at a user-defined schedule. Results can be viewed in a dashboard, sent to AI assistants, or streamed into applications through an API.

Key Takeaways

• Two monitoring models: Stream discovers pages across the web that match a pattern; URL Watch tracks a supplied list of pages and reports what changed.
• Fine-grained query rules: Users can combine keyword, title, site, language, topic, page category/type, source trust, and freshness filters with AND, OR, and NOT.
• Immediate event delivery: Firehose positions itself as an alternative to polling and daily digests, notifying users when a crawled page matches their rule.
• Multiple consumption paths: Matches are available through a live no-code dashboard, can be configured by an AI assistant using a shared key and skill, or streamed directly into apps via API.
• Powered by Ahrefs infrastructure: The service uses the Ahrefs big-data crawler and is operated by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.; signup is free and requires no credit card.

Images & Media

• Firehose logo — Firehose brand mark.
• Hero illustration — Decorative hero visual accompanying the real-time monitoring interface.
• Tracking illustration — Visual backdrop for examples of query-based monitoring.
• Use-cases illustration 1 — Graphic supporting Firehose monitoring use cases.
• Use-cases illustration 2 — Graphic supporting brand and competitor mention tracking.
• Watch/automation illustration — Illustration for dashboard, AI-agent, and API workflows.

Referenced Links

• Ahrefs big-data crawler — The crawler infrastructure powering Firehose.
• Firehose use cases — Use-case information, including security and compliance.
• Pricing — Firehose pricing details.
• Firehose documentation — Product documentation.
• Stream rule query syntax — Documentation for constructing Stream monitoring queries.
• AI agents / skill.md — Instructions for connecting Firehose to an AI assistant.
• Sign up for Firehose — Free account registration.