Better Uptime review
Broad protocol and location checks, with a free plan for personal projects.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Better Uptime, now branded as Uptime on Better Stack, monitors websites, APIs, servers, and network services from multiple locations. Its checks span HTTP status codes, page keywords, SSL certificates, ping, TCP and UDP ports, mail protocols, and DNS. That range makes it a fit for personal projects that need more than a basic website availability check, as well as teams that want incident alerting and status pages alongside monitoring. Web, iOS, Android, and API access are listed platform options.
The free plan, named Free for personal projects, costs $0 per month and includes 10 monitors and heartbeats, one status page, and Slack and email alerts. Responder costs $29 per license per month when billed annually and includes 10 monitors, uptime monitoring with incident management, on-call, monitoring and status pages, and unlimited phone call and SMS alerts. The paid plan's per-license pricing and annual billing make it more relevant to teams budgeting for named responders than to someone seeking an expanded personal allowance. The free tier is the natural starting point for small projects that fit within its monitor and alert limits.
Monitoring is not confined to HTTP: multi-location and geo-specific checks, SSL expiry alerts, keyword presence or absence, and server and network protocols offer useful breadth. Alerting and escalation can use phone, SMS, email, push notifications, critical alerts, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and webhooks. Slack, Teams, Zapier, REST API, webhooks, and a Terraform provider provide options for connecting alerts and infrastructure workflows. Choose Better Uptime if this protocol coverage and its incident and status-page features suit your monitoring needs; look elsewhere if you need more than 10 included monitors on the stated plans or do not want annual billing for Responder.
Better Uptime pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free plan includes 10 monitors and heartbeats plus a status page.
- Checks HTTP, keywords, SSL, ping, TCP, UDP, mail, and DNS.
- Supports multi-location checks, alerts, webhooks, and Terraform.
- Where it doesn't
- The free plan is limited to 10 monitors and heartbeats.
- The free plan includes one status page.
- Responder's $29 per-license monthly rate requires annual billing.
Better Uptime fact sheet, pricing and score →
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