When your service has an outage or slowdown, customers want to know what's going on. A status page is the place you point them to — and the right status page software makes it easy to show uptime, post incidents, and keep trust high.
This guide covers what to look for when choosing status page software: must-have features, pricing considerations, and how it fits with your existing uptime monitoring.
What Is Status Page Software?
Status page software is a tool that hosts (or helps you build) a public page showing the current status of your services. Typically it includes:
- Uptime or status — Green/yellow/red (or similar) for each service or endpoint.
- Incident history — Past outages and maintenance, with timestamps and summaries.
- Subscriptions — Let visitors sign up for email or SMS updates when something happens.
- Optional — Custom domain (e.g. status.yourcompany.com), branding, and integration with your monitoring or ticketing system.
Some tools are standalone (only status page). Others are bundled with uptime monitoring — you monitor from the same product and the status page reflects that data. Both approaches work; the right choice depends on whether you already have monitoring elsewhere and how much you want under one roof.
What to Look For in Status Page Software
1. Uptime display
The page should show current status (and often historical uptime %) for each service or endpoint you list. Ideally:
- Status is automatically updated from your monitoring (no manual toggling).
- You can group services (e.g. "API", "Dashboard", "Login").
- Historical uptime (e.g. 90 days) is visible so customers see you're transparent.
If the tool doesn't integrate with your monitor, you'll be updating status by hand — which is error-prone during an incident.
2. Incident management
You need a way to post and update incidents:
- Create incident — Title, description, affected services, start time.
- Update incident — Add updates as you investigate and fix (e.g. "Investigating", "Identified", "Resolved").
- Notify subscribers — Subscribers get an email or SMS when you post or update (depending on the tool).
- Maintenance — Schedule planned maintenance so it shows on the page and optionally sends a notice.
Check how many incidents you can have, how long history is kept, and whether updates can be sent to subscribers automatically.
3. Subscriber notifications
Visitors should be able to subscribe (email, and optionally SMS) so they're notified when you post or update an incident. Consider:
- Single or multiple subscription options (e.g. "All incidents" vs "Critical only").
- Whether the tool handles double opt-in and unsubscribe (for compliance and clarity).
- Rate limits or caps on subscribers if you have a large audience.
4. Custom domain and branding
- Custom domain — e.g. status.yourcompany.com instead of yourcompany.statuspage.io. Looks more professional and keeps everything under your brand.
- Branding — Logo, colors, and optionally custom CSS so the page matches your site.
Not every product offers a custom domain on every plan; confirm before you commit.
5. Integration with monitoring
If you use uptime monitoring (e.g. Webalert, Pingdom, UptimeRobot), the status page should pull status from it so the page is always in sync. Look for:
- Native integration with your monitoring tool, or
- API/webhook support so you can push status from your own monitoring.
Otherwise you'll maintain two sources of truth and risk the status page being wrong when it matters most.
6. Ease of use
During an outage you're under pressure. The software should let you:
- Post and update incidents in a few clicks.
- See at a glance what's affected and what’s resolved.
- Rely on automation (e.g. status from monitors) so you're not editing components by hand in the middle of the night.
Try the UI (or a demo) before buying.
Pricing and Limits
Status page software varies a lot in price and limits:
- Free or low-cost — Often limited components, incidents, or subscribers; good for small teams or side projects.
- Mid-tier — More components, incidents, subscribers, and sometimes custom domain; good for growing products.
- Enterprise — Higher limits, SSO, SLA, dedicated support; for large or regulated orgs.
Check:
- How many components (services/endpoints) you can show.
- How many subscribers you can have.
- Whether custom domain and historical uptime are included.
- Whether incident notifications (email/SMS) are included or cost extra.
Choose a tier that fits your current size and leaves room to grow.
Status Page vs Uptime Monitoring
They're related but not the same:
| Uptime monitoring | Status page software | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Detect when something is down and alert you | Show customers current status and incidents |
| Audience | You / your team | Your customers / public |
| Output | Alerts (email, Slack, SMS) | Public page + optional subscriber notifications |
Often you use both: monitoring to know when something breaks, status page to communicate. Many vendors offer monitoring + status page in one product so status is driven automatically by your monitors — fewer moving parts and no manual sync.
What Webalert Offers for Status Pages
Webalert includes status pages as part of its monitoring platform:
- Automatic status — Status is driven by your monitors; when a monitor goes down or recovers, the status page reflects it.
- Incidents — Post and update incidents; optional notifications to subscribers.
- Custom domain — Use status.yourcompany.com (or similar) so the page is under your brand.
- Subscriber signup — Visitors can subscribe for updates when you post incidents.
- One place — Monitors and status page in the same product, so you don't maintain two systems.
See features for status page details and pricing for plans.
Quick Checklist: Choosing Status Page Software
- Uptime/status is shown and (ideally) auto-updated from monitoring.
- You can post and update incidents and notify subscribers.
- Subscribers can sign up (email, and optionally SMS) for incident updates.
- Custom domain and basic branding are available if you need them.
- It integrates with your existing uptime monitoring (or includes monitoring).
- The UI is simple enough to use during an incident.
- Pricing and limits (components, subscribers) fit your needs.
Final Thoughts
Status page software is what turns "we're working on it" into a clear, trusted place customers can check. Focus on automatic status from your monitors, easy incident posting and updates, subscriber notifications, and a domain/branding that fits your company. When you compare options, try posting a test incident so you know the workflow before a real outage.
Status page that stays in sync with your monitors
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