You need to know when your site goes down — but you don't want to pay for monitoring until you're sure you need it. Good news: several free uptime monitoring tools can alert you the moment something breaks, with no credit card required.
This guide compares what to look for in a free uptime monitor, common limits, and how to choose one that fits your stack so you can start protecting your site today.
What to Look For in a Free Uptime Monitor
Not all free plans are equal. Here's what matters:
Check frequency
How often does the tool ping your site?
- 10–15 minutes — Fine for blogs and low-traffic sites; you might be down 10+ minutes before you're alerted.
- 5 minutes — Reasonable for most sites.
- 1 minute — Best for business-critical sites; many free plans don't offer this.
Faster checks mean faster alerts. If your free plan only checks every 10 minutes, expect to find out about outages with a delay.
Number of monitors
How many URLs or endpoints can you monitor?
- 1–3 — Enough for a single site (homepage + maybe login or API).
- 5–10 — Good for a small app (main site, API, status page, key pages).
- Unlimited — Rare on free plans; usually capped on paid tiers too.
If you have one site and one API, 2–5 monitors is usually enough. If you're an agency or have many properties, you'll hit limits quickly on free tiers.
Alert channels
Where can alerts go?
- Email only — Common on free plans; fine if you check email often.
- Email + SMS — Better for critical sites; SMS often requires a paid plan or credits.
- Slack / Discord / webhooks — Essential if your team lives in chat; not all free tools offer this.
Choose a tool that alerts you where you'll actually see it — email, Slack, or SMS.
SSL monitoring
Does the free plan check SSL certificate expiry?
- Expired certificates cause browser warnings and lost traffic.
- Alerts at 30, 14, 7, and 1 day before expiry help you renew in time.
If SSL monitoring isn't included on the free plan, you'll need another way to track certificate expiry.
Response time tracking
Does it measure how long your site takes to respond?
- Uptime only — You know when the site is down, not when it's slow.
- Response time — You can spot slowdowns before they turn into full outages and track trends.
Free plans often include basic response time; historical charts or long retention may be paid.
Status page
Can you show a public status page (e.g. status.yoursite.com)?
- Builds trust when something goes wrong.
- Many free plans don't include this or limit it to one page.
If you need to show status to clients or users, check whether the free tier includes it.
Common Limits on Free Uptime Monitoring
| Limit | Typical free tier | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Monitors | 5–10 URLs | Enough for one site + a few endpoints. |
| Check interval | 5–10 min | Slower detection than 1-minute checks. |
| Alert channels | Email only | SMS/Slack often paid or limited. |
| History | 30–90 days | Short retention for incident review. |
| Status page | No or 1 | Limited or no public status. |
| Team members | 1 | No shared access on free. |
| SSL checks | Sometimes | Not always included. |
Read the fine print: "free forever" usually means a limited feature set. If you need 1-minute checks, Slack, or many monitors, you'll likely need a paid plan.
How to Choose a Free Uptime Tool
1. Match your criticality
- Blog or side project — Free plan with 5–10 minute checks and email alerts is usually enough.
- SaaS or business site — Prefer 5-minute (or 1-minute) checks and at least one channel you check often (Slack or SMS).
- Agency or many sites — You'll hit monitor limits fast; plan for a paid plan or multiple free accounts (not ideal).
2. Prefer "free forever" over trials
- Free forever — You can keep the same setup without a credit card or expiry.
- Free trial — You'll need to upgrade or migrate when it ends; fine for testing, not for long-term free use.
3. Check upgrade path
When you outgrow the free plan:
- What does the paid plan add? (faster checks, more monitors, SMS, status page)
- Is pricing clear and affordable?
- Can you export or keep your monitor config if you switch later?
4. Test the alerts
After signing up:
- Add a monitor and trigger a test alert (or use the tool's "test notification").
- Confirm alerts arrive where you expect (email, Slack) and that you'd notice them during an incident.
If the free plan doesn't alert you in a way you'll see, it's not useful.
What Webalert Offers on the Free Plan
Webalert has a free forever plan so you can start monitoring without a credit card:
- Multiple monitors — Monitor several URLs (e.g. homepage, API, login).
- HTTP/HTTPS checks — From multiple locations so you see real availability.
- SSL monitoring — Expiry alerts so you don't miss certificate renewal.
- Response time — See how fast your site responds.
- Email alerts — Down and recovery notifications.
- Optional Slack — Connect Slack on free plan for instant alerts in your workspace.
Paid plans add 1-minute checks, more monitors, SMS, status pages, and team features. See features and pricing for details.
Quick Comparison Checklist
When evaluating any free uptime tool, ask:
- How often does it check? (1, 5, or 10+ minutes?)
- How many monitors are included?
- Where do alerts go? (Email, Slack, SMS?)
- Is SSL expiry monitoring included?
- Is response time (or speed) tracked?
- Is there a status page on the free plan?
- Is it free forever or a time-limited trial?
- What happens when I need more monitors or faster checks?
Final Thoughts
A free uptime monitor is one of the highest-ROI steps you can take: you get notified when your site goes down without spending a dollar. The tradeoff is limits — on monitors, check frequency, and channels. Choose a tool that alerts you where you'll see it, checks often enough for your needs, and has a clear path if you outgrow the free tier.
Start with a free plan, verify that alerts work for you, then upgrade when you need faster checks or more sites.