Instatus gives you a public status page with uptime monitoring built in. When your site or app goes down, it can spot the problem and let customers know in one place. It's for founders who want to cut down on "is it down?" emails. Starter is a "Free forever plan" with no card. Pro is "from $20/mo", and non-profits and open-source projects can ask for Pro free.
What it can do for you
The free plan includes 15 monitors checked every 2 minutes. They can watch websites, APIs, cron jobs (with heartbeats, where your job pings Instatus each time it runs), ping, TCP, UDP and DNS. Alerts come by email.
Your public status page shows customers what's working, and up to 200 people can subscribe for updates. Mobile apps aren't named, but you can watch an app's backend through its API or a heartbeat.
Why it stands out
Some status pages, such as Atlassian Statuspage, don't monitor anything themselves. Instatus does both on one free plan, with checks every 2 minutes.
The honest downsides
- 200 subscribers on Free. Fine for a small product, but it may be tight as you grow.
- Email alerts only are listed on Free.
- No SSL or domain expiry alerts stated. You may need another tool for those.
Skip it if
- you only need private alerts, not a public page
- you expect more than 200 people to follow your status updates
Alternatives
- Better pick for SSL and domain expiry alerts: HetrixTools. It's free for 15 sites at 1-minute checks, and it has public status pages too. The catch: you must log in every 90 days.
- Atlassian Statuspage is a well-known status page with a free tier, but it has no monitoring of its own.
Some links may be affiliate links. They help keep WebTools.directory running at no extra cost to you.
Comments