An honest comparison from people who build one.
We make UptimeSignal, so we're biased. But we've used most of these tools ourselves,
and we'll tell you where each one is strong and where it falls short.
| Tool | Free tier | Paid from | Min interval | Status pages | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UptimeRobot | 50 monitors | $7/mo | 5 min (free), 1 min (paid) | Yes | Maximum free monitors |
| Pingdom | None | $15/mo | 1 min | Yes | Enterprise teams |
| Better Stack | 10 monitors | $29/mo | 3 min (free), 30s (paid) | Yes | Incident management |
| StatusCake | 10 monitors | €20/mo | 5 min (free), 1 min (paid) | Paid only | Page speed testing |
| Datadog | None | $23/mo per host | 1 min | No | Full observability stack |
| UptimeSignal | 25 monitors | $10/mo | 5 min (free), 1 min (paid) | Unlimited (free) | Developers, startups |
Pricing as of April 2026. Check each provider for current details.
The most popular free uptime monitor. UptimeRobot has been around since 2010 and has the largest free tier at 50 monitors with 5-minute checks. If you just need a lot of monitors and don't want to pay anything, it's hard to beat.
The paid plan starts at $7/mo for 50 monitors with 1-minute checks. Additional monitors cost extra. The dashboard is functional but dated. Multi-region checks are available on paid plans.
Owned by SolarWinds. Pingdom has been around forever and is one of the most recognized names in monitoring. It has no free tier. Plans start at $15/mo for 10 synthetic monitors.
The main selling point is real user monitoring (RUM), which tracks actual visitor performance in addition to synthetic checks. If you need both synthetic and RUM in one tool, Pingdom is worth looking at. For synthetic-only monitoring, the price is steep for what you get.
Better Stack combines uptime monitoring with incident management, on-call scheduling, and status pages. The free tier gives you 10 monitors with 3-minute checks. Paid plans start at $29/mo.
The incident management features are where Better Stack differentiates. If your team needs on-call rotations, escalation policies, and post-mortem tools alongside uptime monitoring, it's a good fit. The paid plans can get expensive with add-ons for logs and tracing.
A UK-based monitoring tool that includes uptime, page speed, domain, and SSL monitoring. The free tier gives you 10 monitors with 5-minute checks. Paid plans start at €20/mo.
StatusCake is a solid all-rounder. The page speed testing is a nice extra that most competitors charge for separately. The free tier doesn't include status pages, so you'll need to upgrade if you want a public status page.
That's us. We built UptimeSignal for developers who want straightforward monitoring without a complex pricing page. The free tier gives you 25 monitors with 5-minute checks, email alerts, and unlimited status pages. Pro is $10/mo for unlimited monitors with 1-minute checks.
We're newer and smaller than UptimeRobot or Pingdom. We don't have multi-region checks or RUM. What we do have is a clean interface, fast setup, and a free tier that doesn't restrict commercial use or limit status pages.
If you want the most free monitors: UptimeRobot (50 monitors). Note that their free plan prohibits commercial use.
If you need incident management and on-call: Better Stack. It bundles monitoring with incident workflows, which saves you from running separate tools.
If you need real user monitoring (RUM): Pingdom. It's the only tool here that tracks actual user page load performance alongside synthetic checks.
If you're already in the Datadog ecosystem: Just add Synthetic Monitoring to your existing Datadog setup. No point in running a separate tool.
If you're a developer who wants free monitoring with status pages: UptimeSignal. Our free tier is the only one here that includes unlimited status pages and allows commercial use.
25 monitors. Unlimited status pages. No credit card.
We'll send you a magic link. No password to forget.
Also see: Free Uptime Monitoring · API Monitoring