Short answer: for one app, Staygreen. Its free plan has 50 monitors checked every 3 minutes, up to 5 of them cron heartbeats, and checks that fail when your API's JSON says something is wrong. It also catches failed Stripe webhook deliveries and a paused Supabase project.
If 15 monitors are enough and you have no cron jobs to watch, HetrixTools' free plan is the stronger pick: it checks every minute, and SSL, Slack and webhook alerts, status pages on your own domain and maintenance windows are all free. For many unrelated sites, UptimeRobot. To run it yourself, Uptime Kuma.
Staygreen is made by The Product Compass. UptimeRobot, HetrixTools, Better Stack, Hyperping, StatusCake, Pulsetic and OpenStatus belong to other companies, and Uptime Kuma is an open-source project. Every figure for them comes from the vendor's own pricing page, terms or docs, read on October 26, 2026.
Last updated: October 26, 2026. Free plans in this category change quietly, so check the vendor's page before you rely on a figure.
Start free at staygreen.io: no card, and commercial use is allowed.
What Each Free Plan Includes
Monitors on the free plan: Staygreen 50, for one app. UptimeRobot 50. HetrixTools 15. Better Stack 10. Hyperping 20.
Time between free checks: Staygreen every 3 minutes. UptimeRobot every 5 minutes. HetrixTools every minute. Better Stack every 3 minutes. Hyperping every 5 minutes.
SSL certificate checks: Staygreen free, every host, with domain expiry. UptimeRobot €10 a month on Solo, for 10 monitors. HetrixTools free, with domain expiry. Better Stack: its pricing page doesn't say which plan. Hyperping free.
Cron heartbeats: Staygreen free, 5 jobs. UptimeRobot €10 a month on Solo, for 10 monitors. HetrixTools: not on its pricing page. Better Stack free, 10 jobs. Hyperping free.
Slack alerts: Staygreen free. UptimeRobot €10 a month on Solo, for 10 monitors. HetrixTools free. Better Stack free. Hyperping free.
Webhook alerts: Staygreen free, signed. UptimeRobot €35 a month on Team. HetrixTools free. Better Stack: its pricing page doesn't say which plan. Hyperping $24 a month on Essentials, billed yearly.
A status page on your own domain: Staygreen free, HTTPS included. UptimeRobot €10 a month on Solo, for 10 monitors. HetrixTools free, 3 white-label domains. Better Stack: its pricing page doesn't say which plan. Hyperping $24 a month on Essentials, billed yearly.
Sources: UptimeRobot, HetrixTools, Better Stack and Hyperping.
Staygreen: 50 Free Monitors for One App
What Staygreen's free plan covers, for one app:
50 monitors for one app, checked every 3 minutes, taking turns from Toronto and San Francisco. At most 5 can share one host name, like api.yourapp.com.
SSL certificate and domain expiry for every host, set up automatically.
5 cron heartbeats, counted among the 50 monitors, so a job that quietly stops running gets noticed.
DNS record and TCP port checks, your mail server included.
Checks that read the answer: up to 3 assertions per monitor on a JSON body, like
$.db.ok == true.Alerts by email, Telegram, Slack, Discord and signed webhook.
A status page on your own domain, with HTTPS, your logo and your color.
Failed Stripe webhook deliveries and a paused Supabase project, each as its own check.
An MCP server and REST API, so Claude Code or Codex can see what broke and set up monitoring for a new app.
Commercial use, no card, and 30 days of history.
The JSON check matters because a health route can return 200 while the database behind it is down. A failed HTTP or TCP check is run again from a second location before anyone is alerted.
Builder is $9 a month, or $7.50 a month billed yearly: 10 apps, 100 monitors, 50 heartbeats, checks every minute, a third location in Frankfurt, no “Powered by Staygreen” on your status pages, members-only status pages and 1 year of history.
The Other Free Uptime Monitors
UptimeRobot: 50 free monitors, extras from Solo
50 monitors checked every 5 minutes, for HTTP, port, ping and keyword checks, with 3 months of history and a mobile app. SSL and domain expiry, heartbeats, DNS, Slack and Telegram start on Solo at €10 a month for 10 monitors, webhooks on Team. Its terms allow commercial use. The UptimeRobot alternatives page goes through its free plan line by line. Source: UptimeRobot pricing.
HetrixTools: checks every minute, maintenance windows included
15 uptime monitors, each checked every minute from 4 of 12 locations, with SSL and domain expiry, nameserver changes, status pages, maintenance windows, MCP access for AI agents, and alerts to Slack, Discord, Telegram and webhooks, all on the free plan. Its partial white label, also free, lets you use up to 3 of your own domains, with automatic SSL. Its pricing page lists no cron or heartbeat monitor. The free account stays free while you log in once every 90 days. Source: HetrixTools pricing.
Better Stack: incident management, free for personal projects
10 monitors and 10 heartbeats with 3-minute checks, one status page, and Slack and email alerts. Phone and SMS alerts come with a responder seat at $34 a month ($29 billed yearly). Source: Better Stack pricing.
Hyperping: 20 monitors with SSL and cron checks
20 monitors every 5 minutes, with SSL monitoring, cron healthchecks that count toward the 20, and email, Slack and Teams alerts. The free status page stays on a Hyperping address. Your own domain and webhooks start on Essentials, $24 a month billed yearly. Sources: Hyperping pricing and cron monitoring.
StatusCake: uptime plus page speed
10 uptime monitors every 5 minutes, plus one SSL check and one page speed test a day and one domain check a week. Superior, at $24.49 a month ($20.41 billed yearly), raises that to 100 monitors checked every minute. Source: StatusCake pricing.
Pulsetic: 3 free status pages on your own domain
10 monitors, heartbeats and domains in total, checked every 5 minutes from three regions, with SSL, port, TCP and ping checks and 3 months of history. The free plan includes 3 status pages and a custom domain for them. Slack, Teams, Discord and Telegram aren't on it, and it allows one webhook per monitor. Solo is $9 a month. Source: Pulsetic pricing.
OpenStatus: open source, hosted or self-hosted
Open source under AGPL-3.0, so you can run it on your own server. The hosted free Hobby plan has 1 monitor, checked every 10 minutes, and one status page with three components. Starter is $30 a month. Source: OpenStatus pricing.
Uptime Kuma: you run it
Open source under the MIT license and, in its own words, “an easy-to-use self-hosted monitoring tool”. It checks HTTP, TCP, keywords, JSON, ping, DNS and push monitors as often as every 20 seconds, shows certificate info, maps status pages to your own domains, and sends alerts to more than 90 notification services. It costs only the server. Run it somewhere other than your app, because if they share a machine and it goes down, nothing is left to tell you. Source: the Uptime Kuma repository.
Pingdom and Freshping: no free plan to compare
Pingdom's pricing page lists no free plan, only a free trial. Freshping's address now redirects to the Freshworks homepage. Both checked on October 26, 2026.
Which Free Uptime Monitor Fits
One app that needs more than 15 monitors, cron heartbeats or checks on what your API returns: Staygreen.
Checks every minute without paying: HetrixTools, 15 monitors.
Many unrelated sites on one free account: UptimeRobot. Its 50 free monitors can point anywhere, while Staygreen's free plan is one app with at most 5 monitors on one host name.
Longer history: UptimeRobot keeps 3 months on Free and HetrixTools keeps uptime reports without a limit. Staygreen's free plan keeps 30 days.
SMS or phone alerts: UptimeRobot sells credits on every plan, and HetrixTools charges $0.10 a credit.
You'd rather host it: Uptime Kuma or OpenStatus.
What Staygreen doesn't do yet: monitoring your own MCP server, alert delays and repeats while something is down, maintenance windows, CSV export, and email subscribers on status pages. What it isn't built for: SMS or phone-call alerts, a mobile app, ping and UDP checks, and checks more often than every minute.
Otherwise, start free at staygreen.io.
Questions People Ask
Is there a completely free uptime monitor?
Yes. Eight of the nine here have a free hosted plan, from OpenStatus's one monitor to UptimeRobot's 50, and Uptime Kuma is free software you host yourself. HetrixTools keeps a free account only while you log in every 90 days.
Which free uptime monitor checks most often?
HetrixTools, every minute. Staygreen and Better Stack check every 3 minutes on their free plans, UptimeRobot, Hyperping, StatusCake and Pulsetic every 5, and OpenStatus's free plan every 10. Self-hosted Uptime Kuma goes down to 20 seconds.
Which free uptime monitors include SSL monitoring?
Staygreen checks the certificate and domain expiry of every host. HetrixTools, Hyperping and Pulsetic include SSL monitoring on their free plans, StatusCake's free plan has one SSL check, and self-hosted Uptime Kuma shows certificate info. On UptimeRobot it starts on Solo, at €10 a month.
Can a free uptime monitor watch cron jobs?
Some can. Staygreen's free plan includes 5 heartbeats and Better Stack's 10. Hyperping and Pulsetic count heartbeats within their free monitors, and Uptime Kuma has push monitors. A heartbeat works the other way around from an uptime check: the job calls a URL when it finishes, and you're alerted when the call doesn't come. How cron job monitoring works.
Can I put a status page on my own domain for free?
On Staygreen, yes, with HTTPS. HetrixTools' free partial white label uses up to 3 of your own domains, Pulsetic's free plan includes a custom domain for its 3 status pages, and Uptime Kuma maps status pages to your domains if you host it. UptimeRobot and Hyperping charge for it. The free status page comparison covers the rest.
Can I use a free uptime monitor for a business?
On Staygreen and UptimeRobot, yes. UptimeRobot labels its free plan for personal projects, but its terms say it “is available for any use, including commercial and business use”. Better Stack labels its free plan “Free for personal projects”, and its terms of use say nothing more about it.
Is Staygreen open source?
Not yet. Its code opens in November 2026 under the Apache 2.0 license, and from then on anyone can host it, commercial use included. Hosting it means running probes in several cities, the status page server and the alerts, and watching all of it, which the hosted version does for you, free for one app.
Watch your app free at staygreen.io.
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