§08 · Operations and identity · Which monitoring tool?
Monitoring, uptime and error tracking
Monitoring covers several jobs: uptime checks tell you a site is down, error trackers capture exceptions with stack traces, APM and tracing show where time goes, and log platforms keep what your servers print. Some tools do one job well, others bundle all of them; free allowances are generous for small projects.
28 tools 26 with a free option Checked 28 Sept 2026
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Where we would start, by stage
Editorial picks from the data below, never paid. They change when prices or free tiers do; the full table is underneath.
Hobby $0–10/mo
UptimeRobot 50 monitors at 5-minute intervals and a status page, free.
From $11/mo (Solo, annual), $13 monthly
Indie up to ~$50/mo
Sentry Error tracking, tracing and replays; the free Developer plan covers 5k errors a month.
From $26/mo (Team, billed annually)
Startup up to ~$500/mo
Better Stack Uptime, on-call, status pages and logs in one; the free tier has 10 monitors and 3 GB of logs.
From $29/mo per responder (yearly), $34 monthly
Scale-up usage-driven
Grafana Cloud OpenTelemetry-native metrics, logs and traces with a free tier that covers every service.
From $19/mo platform fee + usage
Enterprise contracts
Datadog Infrastructure, APM, logs, synthetics, RUM and security in one platform.
From $15 per host/mo (Infrastructure Pro, annual)
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All 28 compared
A to Z · never paid placement28 tools
| Tool | From | Free option | Covers | Free allowance | Interval / retention | Status pages | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon CloudWatch aws.amazon.com · EU | Usage-based | Free tier | Metrics, logs, alarms, traces, synthetics, RUM | 10 metrics, 10 alarms, 5 GB logs, 3 dashboards | OTel metrics stored 15 months | No | |
| AppSignal appsignal.com · EU | $23.25/mo | Free tier | APM, errors, logs, hosts, uptime, cron | 50K requests, 1 GB logs/mo | 5-day retention on free | Free public status page with uptime | |
| Axiom axiom.co · EU | $25/mo | Free tier | Logs, traces, events, metrics | 500 GB loading, 10 GB-hrs query, 25 GB stored | 30 days free; configurable on Axiom Cloud | No | |
| Better Stack betterstack.com · EU | $29/mo | Free tier | Uptime, status pages, on-call, logs, traces, errors, RUM | 10 monitors, 100k exceptions, 3 GB logs | 3 min free, down to 30 s paid | 1 included; extra public page $12-15/mo | |
| Bugsink bugsink.com · EU | $16/mo | Free tier | Errors | 15K events/mo hosted (1 user); self-host free | 5K events retained free; 75K on $16 plan | No | |
| BugSnag bugsnag.com | $20/mo | Free tier | Errors, crashes, performance, tracing | 7.5k events + 1M spans/mo, 1 user | 7 days free; 60 days paid | No | |
| Checkly checklyhq.com · EU | $24/mo | Free tier | Uptime, API and browser synthetics, status pages | 10 monitors, 1k browser + 10k API runs/mo | Yes; custom domain from Starter | ||
| Coroot coroot.com · OSS · EU | $1/mo | Free tier | APM, infrastructure, logs, traces, profiling (eBPF) | Community Edition free, self-hosted | No | ||
| Cronitor cronitor.io | Usage-based | Free tier | Cron jobs, uptime, heartbeats, status pages, RUM | 5 monitors, 1 status page | 5 min free, 30 s Business, 5 s Enterprise | 1 basic free; branded $25/mo, private $50/mo | |
| Dash0 dash0.com | Usage-based | Trial | APM, traces, logs, metrics, RUM, synthetics | None; 14-day unlimited trial | 30 days spans/logs; 13 months metrics | No | |
| Datadog datadoghq.com · EU | $15/mo | Free tier | Infrastructure, APM, logs, synthetics, RUM, security | Up to 5 hosts, 1-day metric retention | Logs 3 to 30 days indexed; Flex up to 15 months | No public status pages | |
| GlitchTip glitchtip.com · OSS · EU | $15/mo | Free tier | Errors, performance, uptime, logs | 1,000 events/mo hosted; self-host free | No | ||
| Grafana Cloud grafana.com · OSS · EU | $19/mo | Free tier | Metrics, logs, traces, profiles, dashboards, synthetics | All services with limits, e.g. 50 GB traces/mo | 14 days free; 13 months metrics, 30 days logs on Pro | No | |
| Healthchecks.io healthchecks.io · OSS · EU | $20/mo | Free tier | Cron and heartbeat monitoring | 20 checks | Your schedule (period + grace, or cron expression) | Status badges only | |
| Honeybadger honeybadger.io | $26/mo | Free tier | Errors, logs, APM, uptime, cron, status pages | 5k errors/mo, 50 MB/day logs, 1 monitor | Errors 15 days free, 90 Team, 180 Business | 1 on every plan | |
| Honeycomb honeycomb.io · EU | $150/mo | Free tier | Tracing, events, metrics, SLOs | 20M events, 100M metric data points/mo | No | ||
| Hyperping hyperping.com | $24/mo | Free tier | Uptime, browser checks, server agents, status pages, on-call | 20 monitors, 1 status page | 5 min free, 30 s paid, 20 s Business | 1 free; 1 to 10 with custom domains paid | |
| New Relic newrelic.com · EU | $10/mo | Free tier | APM, infrastructure, logs, RUM, synthetics, errors | 100 GB ingest/mo, 1 full user | At least 8 days default retention on free | No | |
| OneUptime oneuptime.com · OSS · EU | $22/mo | Free tier | Uptime, status pages, on-call, logs, traces, errors | 1 status page, 100 subscribers; monitors $1 each | Every minute ($1 monitors); down to 10 s | 1 free; unlimited on Growth | |
| OpenObserve openobserve.ai · OSS · EU | Usage-based | Free tier | Logs, metrics, traces, RUM, errors | Self-host free; Enterprise free to 50 GB/day | Cloud: logs 30 days, metrics 15 months | No | |
| openstatus openstatus.dev · OSS · EU | $30/mo | Free tier | Uptime, status pages | 1 monitor, 1 status page | 10 min free, 1 min Starter, 30 s Pro | Yes; 1 to 10 by plan, +$20/mo each | |
| Pingdom pingdom.com | $18/mo | Trial | Uptime, page speed, transactions, RUM | None; 30-day trial | Yes, public status pages | ||
| Rollbar rollbar.com | $15.83/mo | Free tier | Errors, session replay | 5k occurrences + 1k sessions/mo | 30 days free; 90 Essentials; 180 Advanced | No | |
| Sentry sentry.io · EU | $26/mo | Free tier | Errors, tracing, replay, logs, profiling, cron/uptime | 5k errors, 5M spans, 50 replays, 1 user | 30-day lookback (Team); up to 90 days on paid | No | |
| SigNoz signoz.io · OSS · EU | $49/mo | Free tier | APM, traces, logs, metrics, exceptions, LLM | Self-hosted Community Edition free | Logs 15 days default on Cloud | No | |
| Uptime Kuma uptime.kuma.pet · OSS · EU | Free tier | Uptime, heartbeat, status pages (self-hosted) | Unlimited, self-hosted | Down to 20 seconds | Yes, multiple, mapped to your own domains | ||
| UptimeRobot uptimerobot.com · EU | $11/mo | Free tier | Uptime, heartbeat, SSL, DNS, status pages | 50 monitors, 1 status page | 5 min free; 60 s Solo, 30 s Team, 15 s Scale | 1 free, 3 Solo, 100 Team, unlimited Scale | |
| Uptrace uptrace.dev · OSS · EU | Usage-based | Free tier | APM, traces, metrics, logs | 50 GB/mo cloud; self-host free | 28 days default; cold storage up to 100 weeks | No |
No tools match these filters.
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How to choose a monitoring tool
- Start with the two cheapest wins: an uptime check with alerts, and an error tracker in your app.
- For logs and traces, pricing is per GB ingested or per event: estimate your volume, then check retention.
- OpenTelemetry support keeps you portable between vendors.
- Self-hosted options (Uptime Kuma, SigNoz) cost nothing but need a server that is not the one you are monitoring.
Questions
What is the best free uptime monitor?
Several services monitor dozens of URLs for free at intervals from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. The table compares free monitors, check interval and status pages.
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