Uptime monitoring tools comparedThe best uptime monitoring tools in 2026

Eight tools side by side: what the free plan gives you, what 50 monitors cost, and who each one is best for. We make InfraNest, so we put it first — every other tool is described from its own website, and the date we checked is below.

By the InfraNest team · Checked October 2026

Tool	Best for	Free plan	About 50 monitors
InfraNest that’s us	Teams that also look after domains, DNS, certificates or servers	20 monitors every 5 minutes, a status page, 10 domains and 25 certificates	€24/mo (Pro), billed yearly
UptimeRobot	A simple monitor with a big free plan	50 monitors every 5 minutes	€35/mo (Team), billed yearly
Pingdom	Transaction checks and real-user monitoring	No free plan, trial only	€60.50/mo, billed yearly
Better Stack	On-call schedules and phone alerts	10 monitors, 1 status page	$29/mo per responder, billed yearly
StatusCake	Many monitors at a low price	3 monitors every 15 minutes	€16.66/mo (Superior), billed yearly
Cronitor	Cron job and heartbeat monitoring	5 monitors	$105/mo (50 monitors, 1 user)
Oh Dear	Many checks per site, including broken links and Lighthouse	No free plan, 10-day trial	€124.16/mo (Agency, 50 sites), billed yearly
Uptime Kuma	Free monitoring on your own server	Free and open source, self-hosted	Free; you pay for the server

1 · That’s us

InfraNest

Website, keyword, port, ping, DNS and SSL checks with status pages, plus the domains, DNS, certificates and servers behind them, in one account. Multi-region checks on Business.

Best for: Teams that also look after domains, DNS, certificates or servers

Start free See pricing

UptimeRobot

A popular uptime monitor with a big free plan of 50 monitors.

Best for: A simple monitor with a big free plan

UptimeRobot vs InfraNest

Pingdom

A long-standing monitor from SolarWinds with transaction checks and real-user monitoring, priced per check.

Best for: Transaction checks and real-user monitoring

Pingdom vs InfraNest

Better Stack

Uptime monitoring with on-call schedules and phone alerts, priced per responder.

Best for: On-call schedules and phone alerts

Better Stack vs InfraNest

StatusCake

Low-cost monitoring at volume, with domain and SSL monitors on its paid plans.

Best for: Many monitors at a low price

StatusCake vs InfraNest

Cronitor

Cron job, heartbeat and website monitoring, priced per monitor and per user.

Best for: Cron job and heartbeat monitoring

Cronitor vs InfraNest

Oh Dear

Website monitoring with many checks per site, priced by the number of sites.

Best for: Many checks per site, including broken links and Lighthouse

Oh Dear vs InfraNest

Uptime Kuma

Free, open-source monitoring that you install and run on your own server.

Best for: Free monitoring on your own server

Uptime Kuma vs InfraNest

How to choose

How many monitors do you need?: Count every website, API and cron job you want watched. Free plans range from none to 50 monitors.
How fast must you know?: A check every 5 minutes is fine for most sites. Shops and SaaS products usually want every minute, or every 30 seconds.
From where?: A site can be up in Europe and down in Asia. Checks from several regions catch that, and stop one bad probe from waking you up.
Who gets the alert?: Email, Slack or Teams for most teams; a paging tool like PagerDuty when someone must be woken up.
What else do you look after?: If you also manage domains, DNS, certificates or servers, a tool that handles those too saves you a second and third login.

Questions

#What is the best free uptime monitoring tool?

For the most free monitors, UptimeRobot (50, every 5 minutes). For free monitoring that also manages your domains, DNS and certificates, InfraNest (20 monitors, 10 domains, 25 certificates). If you want to run it yourself, Uptime Kuma is free and open source.

#What is the cheapest tool for about 50 monitors?

StatusCake Superior at €16.66 a month, then InfraNest Pro at €24, which also includes domains, DNS and certificates. Uptime Kuma is free if you run your own server.

#What are the best UptimeRobot alternatives?

InfraNest if you also manage domains, DNS or servers; Pingdom for transaction checks; Better Stack for on-call and phone alerts; StatusCake for low prices at volume; Cronitor for cron jobs; Oh Dear for broken link and Lighthouse checks; Uptime Kuma to self-host.

#Do I need checks from several regions?

If your visitors are in more than one part of the world, yes: a site can fail in one region while it works in another, and several regions agreeing stops false alarms.

All product names are trademarks of their owners; InfraNest is not affiliated with any of them. Every tool other than InfraNest is described from its own website, checked October 2026. Prices exclude VAT. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.

Try InfraNest next to what you use now

Start on the free plan: 20 monitors, a status page, and your domains and DNS in the same place. No credit card.

Start free See pricing

Free plan · No credit card required · Set up in minutes