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Healthchecks.io monitors scheduled work by waiting for a heartbeat: your job sends a ping when it succeeds, and the service alerts if that ping misses its expected time. Its three schedule types—Simple, Cron, and systemd OnCalendar—match different ways of scheduling work. The Management API automates checks; the Prometheus export exposes their status, not arbitrary application metrics.
How heartbeat monitoring detects a failed or late job
Each Healthchecks.io check has a unique URL. A scheduled process sends an HTTP request to that URL; if the expected ping does not arrive within the configured schedule or period plus grace time, Healthchecks.io can send an alert through a configured integration. The service describes this approach in its cron-job monitoring guide.
For failure detection, make the success ping the signal that the work actually completed. A job that merely starts and then exits or hangs must not send the success signal early. Healthchecks also supports start and failure signals, and accepts stdout or stderr in the request body. A start ping without a later success can help identify a run that is stuck or exceeded its allowed duration. See the ping documentation for the supported signals and request format.
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The basic setup can use curl or wget on a server without installing a separate monitoring agent. For example, a command should send its success ping only after the work completes successfully; implementations should also arrange an explicit failure signal or preserve command output when that information is useful.
Healthchecks.io contrasts this with cron’s MAILTO behavior: it depends on a configured mail transfer agent, cannot alert when the whole machine is offline, and may generate noisy email for routine job output. Those are the vendor’s stated limitations; mail can still be appropriate in environments where it is already configured and meets the alerting need.
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Choose the schedule type that matches the job
Healthchecks.io documents three schedule types. Choose based on how the work is scheduled, rather than treating the options as interchangeable:
| Type | What you configure | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | An expected interval (period) and grace time. | A process expected to recur at a regular interval, such as hourly, daily, or weekly. It checks elapsed time, not a particular wall-clock time. |
| Cron | A cron expression, the server’s timezone, and grace time. | A job scheduled against a calendar, such as a particular time or day. Use the timezone that the server’s cron scheduler uses so the expected run aligns with reality. |
| OnCalendar | A systemd calendar expression. | A job launched by a systemd timer. This is systemd’s calendar syntax, not a cron expression. |
The descriptions and schedule settings are in Healthchecks.io’s check configuration documentation. In all cases, the grace time determines how long a late or missing ping is tolerated before the check becomes late and can trigger an alert.
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What the Management API is for
Healthchecks.io’s Management API v3 is for automating and retrieving monitor configuration and Healthchecks data, not for sending arbitrary application telemetry. With a project-specific API key, clients can list, retrieve, create, update, pause, resume, and delete checks; list pings, status changes, integrations, and badges; and check database connectivity. Its v3 documentation supports Simple, cron, and OnCalendar schedules. If both a schedule and timeout are provided when creating a check, the schedule takes precedence.
The API documentation says, “Avoid making more than 100 API requests per minute.” Treat that as the published rate guidance when designing automation. Use the API to provision or manage checks and retrieve their records; use check ping URLs for the heartbeat signal.
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Prometheus export is status visibility, not a custom-metrics API
If your team already uses Prometheus and Grafana, Healthchecks.io offers a Prometheus endpoint that exports check status and related metrics for visualization or alerting. Its documented example uses a read-only project API key and a 60-second scrape interval; the exported metrics include whether each check is currently up. The endpoint helps bring monitor state into an existing observability setup, but it does not turn Healthchecks.io into a general application-performance metrics collector or log aggregation service. The vendor explicitly says those are not its purpose in its Prometheus and product documentation.
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When a metrics-oriented monitor is a better fit
A heartbeat answers a focused operational question: did this scheduled task report success on time? If you also need custom per-run measurements—such as named numeric series, execution counts, durations, success rates, or error counts—you need a tool whose metrics model is built for those values. Cronitor’s official Metrics API documentation describes time-series and custom series capabilities.
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Healthchecks.io’s own comparison with Cronitor says Cronitor can report measures such as exit code, count, duration, and error count, while Healthchecks reports exit code; it also lists additional Cronitor capabilities, including active website uptime monitoring. That is a vendor-authored comparison, not an independent benchmark, and product capabilities can change. Confirm current features and plans on the vendors’ own pages before choosing.
- Choose heartbeat monitoring when the priority is alerting that scheduled work did not complete on time.
- Use Healthchecks.io’s Prometheus export when you want check status represented in an existing Prometheus/Grafana environment.
- Evaluate a metrics-oriented service when you need custom run measurements or monitoring beyond scheduled jobs, such as active website checks.
Healthchecks.io’s homepage currently states, “Monitor 20 cron jobs for free. No credit card required.” This is a product-plan statement, not an independent capacity measure; confirm the current offer on the Healthchecks.io homepage.
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