Free Uptime Monitoring 2026: Free Plan Limits Compared

UptimeRobot has the largest hosted free plan here: 50 monitors checked every 5 minutes at $0, according to its pricing page as read on October 10, 2026. StatusCake and Better Stack stop at 10 monitors, and Better Stack's free plan is for personal projects only. If you can run a server, Uptime Kuma is open source under the MIT license, and its README lists no monitor limit.

Toolradar data: of the 20 status page and uptime tools we rank, 15 have a free plan, as of October 2026. Free is common, so the limits decide which one fits.

Every limit in this guide comes from the vendor's own site, read on October 10, 2026. Where a vendor shows prices only in euros, we leave the price out rather than convert it. Free tiers change without notice, so check the vendor page before you open an account.

What free uptime monitoring covers

Free uptime monitoring checks that a site or endpoint answers at a fixed interval, and alerts you when it stops. Free plans trim something: the number of monitors, how often each one runs, which alert channels you get, how long logs are kept, and whether you get a status page. The same trade-off runs through other free tiers, such as the AI API rate limits in Free LLM APIs in 2026.

Free uptime plans at a glance

Read across the table and two things stand out. Among hosted plans, UptimeRobot holds the most monitors and keeps three months of history, while Better Stack keeps logs for three days. Then check who the plan is for, because two of the free plans describe their intended user in their own wording.

UptimeRobot: 50 monitors and no login seats

UptimeRobot gives the largest free allowance of the hosted plans: 50 monitors, each checked every 5 minutes. Its free plan lists HTTP, port and ping monitors, keyword, API, UDP and DNS monitors, and SSL and domain expiry alerts. Alerts go to email and five integrations, and the pricing page says "Only 5 integrations."

The free plan has no login seats, so a teammate cannot sign in to the dashboard. Logs stay for 3 months. SMS alerts are not included, but you can buy credits: 10 credits cost $3.00 and 100 cost $15.00, both one-time, per the pricing page. The free status page is basic, and an own domain for a status page starts on Solo.

Solo adds 60-second checks, three status pages on your own domain, and 12 months of logs. Team adds three login seats and webhook, Zapier and PagerDuty alerts. UptimeRobot lists its plan prices in euros only, so this guide gives no dollar price for the paid tiers. It also describes the free plan as good for hobby and non-profit projects, which is worth checking before a client site goes on it.

StatusCake: 10 uptime monitors and three other test types

StatusCake's free plan gives 10 uptime monitors at 5-minute intervals. It adds one page-speed monitor tested every 24 hours, one domain monitor checked every 7 days, one SSL monitor checked every 24 hours, and alerts through integrations. That covers one marketing site well. It covers a portfolio poorly, because 10 uptime monitors is the whole uptime allowance.

Superior, the next plan, lifts uptime monitors to 100, drops the check interval to 1 minute, and adds three server monitors. StatusCake shows its plan prices in euros only. The page mentions USD invoices but no US dollar plan price, so this guide gives none.

Better Stack: free for personal projects

Better Stack's free plan costs $0 and is labelled free for personal projects. It includes 10 monitors and heartbeats, one status page, Slack and email alerts, 100,000 exceptions a month and 5,000 session replays. Logs, traces and web events are kept for 3 days, with 3 GB of each.

The exceptions and session replays belong to error tracking and user recording, not uptime checks. For uptime alone, the 10-monitor allowance is the number that matters. The pricing page lists checks as frequent as 30 seconds for uptime monitoring, but it does not say which plan includes them, and it states no free check interval. Do not assume the free plan checks at any particular speed.

Phone and SMS alerts need the Responder license, which the page lists at $29 to $34 per license a month. Extra status pages cost $12 to $15 a month each, and packs of 50 extra monitors cost $21 to $25 a month. The page describes the free plan for personal projects, so a company site needs a paid plan under those terms.

Uptime Kuma: free software, your own server

Uptime Kuma is free to download. Its GitHub repository carries an MIT license, and the README describes a self-hosted tool you can install with Docker. It checks HTTP(s), TCP, keyword, JSON query, WebSocket, ping, DNS, push, Steam game servers and Docker containers, with 20-second intervals listed as a feature. It sends alerts through 90+ notification services and runs multiple status pages.

The README lists no monitor limit. What you pay for is the server it runs on, and this guide does not price one. A cheap VPS for the job is covered in Best Cheap VPS Hosting in 2026, and other self-hosted options are in Best Self-Hosting Tools in 2026.

One trap decides whether self-hosting works. If Uptime Kuma runs on the same server as the site it watches, an outage of that server also silences the alert. Put the monitor on a separate host.

Which free plan fits 25 client sites

Take a freelancer with 25 client sites, each checked every 5 minutes. That is 300 checks an hour across the set (25 monitors, 12 checks each per hour). Only two of the four options hold 25 monitors without a paid plan.

• UptimeRobot: the free plan holds 50, so 25 sites fit with 25 spare. UptimeRobot's own description of the free plan names hobby and non-profit projects, so client work needs a terms check.
• StatusCake: the free plan holds 10, so 15 sites need Superior, which the page prices only in euros.
• Better Stack: the free plan holds 10 and is labelled for personal projects. Packs of 50 extra monitors cost $21 to $25 a month on a paid plan.
• Uptime Kuma: it holds 25 if the server does, since the README lists no monitor limit.

At 5-minute checks, an outage can go unseen for up to five minutes.

Gotchas before you pick

• Check speed: UptimeRobot and StatusCake check their free monitors every 5 minutes. Better Stack's free check interval is not on its page.
• History: UptimeRobot keeps logs for 3 months on free. Better Stack keeps logs, traces and web events for 3 days.
• Team access: UptimeRobot's free plan has no login seats, so a teammate cannot see the dashboard.
• SMS: UptimeRobot's free plan does not include SMS. Credits cost $3.00 for 10 or $15.00 for 100, one-time.
• Terms: Better Stack says personal projects, and UptimeRobot says hobby and non-profit projects. Read the terms against your use.
• Hosting: keep a self-hosted monitor off the host it watches.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free uptime monitor with no monitor limit?

Uptime Kuma. Its README lists no monitor limit, its license is MIT, and the cost is the server you run it on. Among hosted free plans, UptimeRobot's 50 monitors is the largest allowance on this page.

Which free uptime plan has the most monitors?

Among hosted plans, UptimeRobot has the most: 50 monitors on its free plan, each checked every 5 minutes. Uptime Kuma lists no limit, but you run it on your own server. StatusCake's free plan includes 10 uptime monitors, and Better Stack's includes 10 monitors and heartbeats.

Does UptimeRobot's free plan include SMS alerts?

No. SMS and voice credits are not included on the free plan, but you can buy them: 10 credits cost $3.00 and 100 credits cost $15.00, one-time, per the pricing page read on October 10, 2026.

How often does a free uptime check run?

Every 5 minutes on UptimeRobot's free plan and on StatusCake's free uptime monitors. Better Stack's pricing page does not state a free check interval.

Who are the free plans for?

UptimeRobot describes its free plan as good for hobby and non-profit projects. Better Stack labels its free plan for personal projects. Check each vendor's terms before you put a client or company site on a free plan.

How we checked

Plan limits and prices come from the vendors' own pricing pages, read on October 10, 2026: UptimeRobot, StatusCake and Better Stack. The Uptime Kuma license and feature list come from its GitHub repository. The first-party count comes from Toolradar's status page and uptime tools ranking, updated October 2026. Tool pages: UptimeRobot, StatusCake, Better Stack and Uptime Kuma.

Cite this: Devshot, "Free Uptime Monitoring 2026: Free Plan Limits Compared", October 2026.

Keep reading on Devshot

• Best Monitoring Tools in 2026: observability platforms compared on billing model, for when uptime checks are not enough.
• Best Log Management Tools in 2026: log platforms compared, for the history that free plans trim.
• Best Error Tracking Tools in 2026: error tracking compared, the side of Better Stack's free plan that is not uptime.
• Sentry Review 2026: Sentry's pricing and limits.
• Cloud Free Tiers Compared (2026): the free tiers of AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and Oracle, for a server to host Uptime Kuma.
• Best Free Database Hosting in 2026: free database hosting tiers.
• Best Cheap VPS Hosting in 2026: cheap VPS plans for a self-hosted monitor.
• Best VPS Hosting for Developers in 2026: VPS hosting compared for developers.

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