Uptime Kuma
Self-hosted uptime monitoring tool with a beautiful UI. Monitors HTTP/HTTPS endpoints, TCP ports, DNS, Docker containers, databases, and more. Sends alerts via 90+ notification channels (Slack, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, email, etc.). Includes a public-facing status page. Single-container Docker deployment. The self-hosted alternative to UptimeRobot with richer features and no subscription fee.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Self-hosted — security depends on your hosting configuration. No MFA in community version. API tokens for programmatic access. HTTPS recommended for dashboard access.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
You want a beautiful, free, self-hosted uptime monitor for internal and external services with status pages and rich alerting, without UptimeRobot's monitor count limits.
Avoid When
You need multi-region monitoring from geographically distributed nodes — a single Uptime Kuma instance monitors from one location only.
Use Cases
- • Monitor HTTP endpoints, APIs, and websites with configurable check intervals and alert thresholds from a self-hosted instance
- • Create public status pages for your services that automatically update based on monitoring results
- • Monitor internal services (Docker containers, databases, private endpoints) that external monitoring can't reach
- • Replace UptimeRobot or Better Uptime with a self-hosted solution that doesn't limit monitor counts or check frequency
- • Consolidate uptime monitoring for multiple services with alerts routed to Slack, PagerDuty, or 90+ notification channels
Not For
- • Distributed multi-region monitoring — Uptime Kuma monitors from a single instance; use UptimeRobot or Better Uptime for global multi-region checks
- • SLA-based enterprise monitoring with compliance reporting — Datadog or New Relic offer enterprise-grade uptime monitoring
- • High-frequency monitoring (<10 second intervals) at scale — single-instance Uptime Kuma has resource limits
Interface
Authentication
Username/password for dashboard. API tokens for REST API access. Status pages can be public or password-protected. No SSO in community version.
Pricing
MIT licensed. Completely free. Self-hosted on any server with Docker. Monthly VPS cost (~$5-10) is the only expense.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ Uptime Kuma's REST API is community-documented, not official — API endpoints may change between versions without notice
- ⚠ Single-instance monitoring means all checks run from one location — network issues at the host affect all monitors simultaneously
- ⚠ Data is stored in SQLite by default — database backup must be configured manually to prevent monitoring history loss
- ⚠ WebSocket connection is used for real-time dashboard updates — REST API polling is needed for programmatic status checks
- ⚠ Monitor notifications can flood alert channels during incidents if retry settings are not configured correctly
- ⚠ Docker deployment requires persistent volume mounting for SQLite database — container restarts without volumes lose all monitor configuration
Alternatives
Full Evaluation Report
Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for Uptime Kuma.
Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.