Overview
Healthchecks.io solves one problem well: finding out when a scheduled job silently stops running. Each check gets a unique ping URL; your cron job, backup script, systemd timer, Kubernetes CronJob or GitHub workflow calls it on each run. If the ping does not arrive within the period plus a grace time, or at the times given by a cron expression, you get an alert.
Alerts can go to email, webhooks, Slack, Discord, Teams, Matrix, ntfy, Gotify, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, GitHub issues and more, plus SMS, WhatsApp and phone calls on paid plans. Each check keeps a log of received pings, and public badges show status in READMEs or dashboards.
The free Hobbyist plan covers 20 jobs, which is plenty for personal servers. Business at $20 a month raises that to 100 jobs with longer ping history and SMS credits. The whole service is open source under the BSD licence, so you can run your own copy with Django and PostgreSQL or MySQL.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
Hobbyist: monitor 20 cron jobs with 100 log entries per job and the full set of notification integrations, no card required.
At the limit Not stated The vendor does not say what happens at the limit, or we have not found it yet.
Paused if unused| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Hobbyist | $0 | 20 checks, 100 log entries per job |
| Supporter | $5/mo | Same limits as Hobbyist, for users who want to support the service |
| Business | $20/mo ($192/yr) | 100 jobs, 1,000 log entries per job, 50 SMS/WhatsApp and 20 phone call credits, email support |
| Business Plus | $80/mo ($768/yr) | 1,000 jobs, 500 SMS/WhatsApp and 100 phone call credits, priority support |
What it does
- Ping URLs
- Jobs signal start, success or failure by HTTP request or email.
- Period, grace and cron schedules
- Define expected timing as an interval plus grace time or as a cron expression.
- 25+ integrations
- Email, Slack, Discord, Teams, ntfy, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, webhooks and more.
- Ping log
- History of received pings per check: 100 entries free, 1,000 on paid plans.
- Status badges
- Public badges per tag for READMEs and dashboards.
- Self-hosting
- BSD-licensed Django app you can run on your own server.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Does one job simply and reliably, with minimal setup.
- 20 free checks with all integrations.
- Open source and self-hostable.
- Free Business plan for open-source projects and nonprofits.
Limitations
- Only monitors jobs that ping it; it does not check websites or APIs from outside.
- No full status pages, just badges.
- Free plan keeps only 100 ping log entries per job.
- No prorated refunds when cancelling a paid plan.
Who it suits
Good for
- Backups and cron jobs on personal or company servers
- Kubernetes CronJobs and CI scheduled workflows
- Self-hosters who want an open-source cron monitor
Look elsewhere if
- Website uptime monitoring from multiple locations
- Error tracking or APM
Alternatives to Healthchecks.io
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grafana Cloud Hosted metrics, logs, traces and dashboards | $19/mo | Free tier | |
| OneUptime Open-source uptime, status pages, on-call, APM and logs | $22/mo | Free tier | |
| AppSignal APM with errors, logs, hosts and uptime | $23.25/mo | Free tier | |
| Checkly Synthetic and uptime monitoring as code | $24/mo | Free tier | |
| Hyperping Uptime monitoring, status pages and on-call | $24/mo | Free tier | |
| Axiom Log and event data platform | $25/mo | Free tier |
Questions
Is Healthchecks.io free?
Yes, the Hobbyist plan monitors 20 cron jobs for free with no credit card.
How does Healthchecks.io work?
Each job pings a unique URL when it runs; if a ping is late beyond the grace time, Healthchecks.io sends an alert.
Can I self-host Healthchecks.io?
Yes, it is open source under the BSD 3-clause licence and runs on Python, Django and PostgreSQL, MySQL or MariaDB.
How much is Healthchecks.io Business?
$20 a month or $192 a year for 100 monitored jobs.
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