Finding hackathons
Favorites
Star hackathons to keep a personal shortlist at /favorites, and manage it from the site or over MCP.
Favorites are your personal shortlist. Star any hackathon and it lands on /favorites, where you can sort, filter and open it again later. Favorites are free on every plan and there is no limit on how many you keep.
Star a hackathon
The star lives in the action row on every hackathon page and in the detail panel that opens when you click a row in the database. It is the first tile, labeled Favourite, next to Calendar, Passport and Share.
Open a hackathon
Click a row in /database, or open any event page directly.Click the star
The star fills yellow and a toast confirms Added to favorites.Click it again to remove
The star empties and the toast says Removed from favorites.
You need to be signed in. If you click the star while signed out, HackathonRadar sends you to sign in and then returns you to the event page you were on. The star does not save anything until you are signed in.
You can also pick favorites during onboarding: the events you keep on the matches step are added to your list when you finish.
Your favorites list
/favorites is in the sidebar under You. It uses the same table as the database, with a star column at the front so you can unstar a row without opening it.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scope menu (next to Favorites in the breadcrumb) | All favorites, Upcoming or Past |
| Column visibility | Show or hide columns, the same way as in the database |
| Star column | Unstar a hackathon. It disappears from the list straight away |
| Row click | Opens the hackathon in a detail panel over your list |
A favorite counts as Upcoming until its end date passes (or its start date, if it has no end date). Hackathons with no dates at all only show under All favorites.
The list is sorted with your most recently starred hackathon first. If you have no favorites yet, the page shows No favorites yet and a Browse hackathons button.
Columns that need a plan
Your favorites follow the same column rules as the database:
| Column | Plan |
|---|---|
| Organizers and the primary organizer email | Pro Plus |
| Quality score | Enterprise |
On a lower plan these columns stay locked in the column menu. Everything else in the table is available on every plan. See Plans and billing for the full matrix.
Open a favorite
Clicking a row opens the hackathon in a side panel, so you stay on your list. The panel has the same action row as the full page, so you can unstar it there too. See Hackathon pages for what each part of the page shows.
Favorites in the weekly digest
The weekly digest reminds you of favorites that start soon, and its picks skip events you have already starred.
Favorites over MCP
If you connect an AI assistant to the MCP server, the list_favorites and toggle_favorite tools read and change the same list on every plan. Changes show up on /favorites the next time you load the page.
Favorites and Discord bookmarks
The Bookmark button on hackathon posts in the Discord community saves the event to your Discord account, not to your HackathonRadar favorites. The two lists are separate.
Troubleshooting
- The star does nothing and you land on the sign-in page. You are signed out. Sign in and click it again.
- "Couldn't update favorites". The save failed and the star went back to its previous state. Try again.
- A favorite disappeared. Hackathons that are removed from HackathonRadar no longer appear in your list.