Everything you like about Kuma, without being the one who keeps the box up.
Uptime Kuma is free, open-source, and genuinely good software. This isn't a takedown of it — it's an honest comparison for the moment hosting it yourself stops being the fun part.
- —You need TCP, ping, DNS, Docker, or WebSocket checks today
- —Running and patching a server yourself isn't a burden
- —Free forever matters more than convenience
- —You're monitoring internal or homelab infra, not customer-facing services
- —You don't want your monitoring to share a single point of failure with the thing it watches
- —You want detection that tells "degraded" apart from "down," and resolves itself
- —You have teammates who need their own login, not one shared password
- —You'd rather pay than own the ops burden of the monitor itself
Side by side
Where each one actually is today, not a wishlist.
| Feature | Uptime Kuma | HeimPulse |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, open source, self-hosted | Free plan, then $29-$99/mo tiers |
| Who runs the server | You do — provisioning, patching, backups | HeimPulse does |
| If your own infra goes down | Your monitoring usually goes down with it — Kuma checks from wherever it's installed | Keeps checking and alerting — it runs independently of your infrastructure |
| Check types | HTTP(S), TCP, ping, DNS, Docker, push/heartbeat, WebSocket, Steam | HTTP(S) — status, latency, header, body assertions. DNS and gRPC are planned, not shipped yet |
| SSL/TLS certificate expiry | Included, per monitor | Included on Pro/Business — a real TLS handshake against the host, independent of any HTTP check |
| Incident detection | Alerts after N consecutive failed checks (configurable retries) | Sliding-window detection that separates a real outage from a single blip, plus a distinct degraded-performance signal |
| Auto-resolve | Resolves once the check passes again | Same, plus the degradation state is tracked separately from full outages |
| Status pages | Included, self-hosted alongside the dashboard | Included — multiple pages per org, separate logo/branding per page |
| Notification channels | 90+ via built-in integrations (Telegram, Discord, Slack, email, and more) | Webhook (HMAC-signed, SSRF-guarded) and Slack today, with retry/backoff and dead-lettering on failed deliveries. Email is on the roadmap, not production yet |
| Team access | Built around a single shared login by default — per-user roles is a long-standing open feature request in the project | Org-based from day one — invite teammates individually, with a per-org audit log |
| Data residency | Never leaves your server | Lives on HeimPulse's infrastructure |
- More check types today — TCP, ping, DNS, Docker containers, WebSocket, push/heartbeat. HeimPulse is HTTP(S)-first; if your stack needs those checks now, Kuma already covers them.
- Free forever, with no plan limits — no cap on monitors, no service/endpoint counts to track.
- Your data never leaves your own server. For teams with a hard data-residency requirement, that's not a preference, it's a constraint HeimPulse can't override.
- Monitoring that runs independently of your own infrastructure — if your server or network has a bad night, your alerting doesn't have one too.
- Automatic incident detection that distinguishes a real outage from a single failed check, tracks degraded performance separately from a full outage, and resolves itself once things recover.
- Reliable webhook delivery — HMAC-signed, SSRF-guarded, retried on a backoff, dead-lettered instead of silently dropped if a destination stays down.
- Org-based access from day one: teammates get their own login, and every change lands in a per-org audit log.
Frequently asked questions
Is this page trying to talk you out of Uptime Kuma?
No. Kuma is free, actively maintained, and covers more check types than HeimPulse does today. If you're comfortable running a server and want DNS, TCP, ping, or Docker checks right now, it's a genuinely good choice. This page is for the specific moment that decision stops being easy — when patching, backing up, and babysitting the box your monitoring lives on is its own chore.
What monitor types does HeimPulse actually support today?
HTTP(S) checks — status code, latency, header, and body assertions — plus a separate SSL/TLS certificate expiry check that does a real handshake against a host independent of any HTTP monitoring. DNS and gRPC check types are planned but not built yet. If you need those today, Kuma already has them.
Can I import my existing Uptime Kuma monitors?
Not automatically — there's no import tool today. Recreating a monitor in HeimPulse's dashboard takes a minute or two per check, which is usually faster than it sounds for a handful of endpoints.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — 3 services with 3 endpoints each, one region, one status page, and a day of check history, no credit card required. It's not "free forever" the way a self-hosted tool is, but there's also no server for you to run.
Full feature breakdown → · More on automatic incident detection → · More alternatives →
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