Uptime Kuma alternative
Uptime Kuma's spirit, without the server to babysit
Uptime Kuma is great software. But it runs on your server — which means updates, backups, and a monitor that goes dark exactly when your infrastructure does. We give you hosted monitoring with a real API and MCP support, free.
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want unlimited monitors, 20-second checks, and full data ownership — and you're happy to be your own ops team. Choose Uptime Monitor if you'd rather spend that time on your product: sign up, add a monitor, done. No Docker, no updates, no 3 AM 'the monitor is down' irony.
| Uptime Monitor | Uptime Kuma | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Hosted SaaS — nothing to run | Self-hosted — you provide the server |
| Software cost | $0 | $0 (MIT licensed) |
| Infrastructure cost | $0 | ~$5/mo VPS + your maintenance time |
| Monitors (free) | 50 | Unlimited |
| Check interval | 5 minutes | 20 seconds |
| Setup time | Under a minute | 15–60 minutes + ongoing maintenance |
| Survives your infra going down | ✓ | Only if you built HA yourself |
| Notification channels | Email, webhook, Slack, Discord | 90+ integrations |
| REST API | Yes — free, 600 req/min per key | Basic API |
| MCP server for AI assistants | ✓ | ✕ |
| Status pages | Coming with Pro | Yes, self-hosted |
Comparison based on each product's public pricing and docs, checked October 2026. Plans change — verify before you decide.
Why teams switch from Uptime Kuma
- No server to maintain. No Docker updates, no backups, no disk-space alerts for the thing that's supposed to alert you.
- Monitoring that outlives your outages. When your VPS goes down, a self-hosted monitor goes down with it. Ours keeps watching from outside.
- A real API and MCP, free. Automate monitor management and let AI assistants do it conversationally — no SSH required.
- Under-a-minute setup. Sign up, paste a URL, get alerted. No compose files.
The honest part
Stay with Uptime Kuma if you need unlimited monitors, 20-second intervals, 90+ notification integrations, or hard data-sovereignty requirements. It's genuinely excellent — we just remove the ops burden for everyone else.
Questions
Is Uptime Monitor really free?
Yes. 1 user, 5 notification contacts, 50 monitors with 5-minute checks, every monitor type, every alert channel, the REST API and the MCP server — free forever, no credit card required.
What do I lose vs self-hosting Uptime Kuma?
Unlimited monitors, 20-second check intervals, and keeping all data on your own hardware. If those matter more than zero maintenance, Kuma is the right call.
What is MCP support?
MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets AI assistants like Claude manage your monitors — list, create, and trigger checks — through a standard endpoint, free on every plan.
Can I monitor internal-only services?
Our checks run from our hosted infrastructure, so targets need to be reachable from the public internet. For internal networks, a self-hosted tool like Uptime Kuma remains the better fit.
Free forever · No credit card · API & MCP included