Cabot review
A flexible open-source monitor for teams prepared to operate their own stack.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Cabot is a free, open-source, self-hosted monitoring platform for technical teams managing websites, infrastructure, services, and operational metrics. It runs through web, API, and self-hosted deployments, with checks for HTTP endpoints, Graphite metrics, Jenkins jobs and builds, and host availability through ICMP ping. Its service and instance grouping helps organize checks around services and the hosts that provide them. Cabot suits teams that want control over deployment and alerting rather than a hosted monitoring service.
The feature set is broad for an open-source monitor. HTTP checks can evaluate status codes, timeouts, debounce behavior, and regular-expression text matches. Graphite and Jenkins integrations extend monitoring into metrics and delivery workflows, while plugins add further checks and alert channels. Alert destinations include email, Slack, SMS, telephone, and Hipchat. Cabot also supports SSL certificate expiration checks through a plugin, duty rota synchronization through an iCalendar feed, and authenticated access to a browsable API. Deployment and ecosystem integrations include PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, Twilio, and Google Calendar.
Cabot's main trade-off is operational responsibility. Teams must deploy and maintain the platform themselves, and the official repository describes it as stable but not actively maintained. That makes its extensibility and free open-source model more suitable for self-hosters with the technical capacity to manage their monitoring stack and assess long-term maintenance needs. Teams seeking an actively maintained hosted service, or a product with vendor-managed operations, should choose an alternative. Cabot is a practical fit when customizable checks, service grouping, and broad alerting matter more than managed delivery.
Cabot pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Checks HTTP endpoints, metrics, Jenkins jobs, and host availability
- Supports email, Slack, SMS, telephone, and Hipchat alerts
- Offers plugins, service grouping, SSL checks, and a browsable API
- Where it doesn't
- Requires self-hosting and operational ownership
- Not actively maintained according to the official repository
- Current ownership is unclear
Cabot fact sheet, pricing and score →
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