Better Stack Uptime

What can be monitored and how reliably a failure is detected: HTTP(S) with status code and keyword checks, TCP and port, ping, DNS records, SSL certificate and domain expiry, cron jobs and heartbeats, multi-step API checks with assertions, browser or transaction checks of a login or checkout, the shortest check interval, the number and regions of probe locations, the re-check from a second location before an alert, timeouts and response time thresholds, and private locations inside the customer's own network.

0 — Runs no checks of its own; a status page or alerting tool that only receives signals from other monitors.

3 — HTTP checks of a URL at a fixed interval with an up or down result; keyword, SSL, cron and the probe locations are basic or not described.

5 — HTTP(S), keyword, TCP or port, ping and SSL expiry checks, cron or heartbeat monitoring, an interval of one minute or less, several named probe locations, a failure confirmed from a second location before alerting, and response times recorded per check.

8 — Multi-step API checks with assertions on headers and body, browser or transaction checks of a user flow, DNS and domain expiry checks, sub-minute intervals, probe locations listed by city with the confirmation logic documented, private locations or agents for internal services, and maintenance windows that pause checks.

10 — Coverage and accuracy a reliability team runs on: every check type above with code-based checks (for example Playwright or scripted tests) in version control, location-specific thresholds, false-positive handling and probe health published, and the detection method documented so a result can be reproduced.

How the right person learns about a failure: alert channels (email, SMS, phone call, push app, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, webhooks), alerts to PagerDuty, Opsgenie or similar tools, escalation policies when an alert is not acknowledged, on-call schedules and rotations, acknowledge and resolve from the app, alert grouping and noise reduction, recovery notifications, maintenance windows that mute alerts, and whether SMS and calls are included or charged per message.

0 — No alerting at all; results can only be viewed in the dashboard.

3 — Email alerts and one or two chat integrations; escalation, phone calls and schedules are basic or not described.

5 — Email, SMS, a mobile push app, Slack, Microsoft Teams and webhooks, alerts forwarded to PagerDuty or Opsgenie, per-monitor alert contacts, recovery notifications, a delay or threshold before alerting, and maintenance windows that mute alerts.

8 — Phone call alerts, escalation policies with timeouts, on-call schedules and rotations with overrides, acknowledge and resolve from the app or chat, alert grouping, incident timelines with who did what, and the price of SMS and calls stated per country or included in the plan.

10 — On-call that replaces a separate incident tool: follow-the-sun schedules, escalation across teams, alert routing by service and severity, post-incident reviews generated from the timeline, and delivery of every alert channel monitored and reported.

How customers and colleagues are told: public status pages on a custom domain with SSL, components and component groups fed automatically by monitors or set by hand, incident updates and scheduled maintenance announcements, subscribers notified by email, SMS, RSS or webhook, uptime history shown per component, private or password-protected pages for internal teams or single customers, branding and custom CSS, several languages, page templates, and how the status page itself stays online when the main product is down.

0 — No status page of any kind.

3 — A public status page listing monitors with their current state; custom domain, incident updates and subscribers are basic or not described.

5 — Public status pages on a custom domain, components linked to monitors, incident updates and scheduled maintenance, email subscribers, uptime history per component, the vendor's branding removable, and a password-protected or private page option.

8 — Component groups, SMS, RSS and webhook subscribers with per-component subscriptions, private pages with single sign-on or IP restriction, several languages, incident templates, embeddable status widgets, audience-specific pages for single customers, and the status page hosting kept separate from the main service and documented.

10 — Incident communication end to end: incidents drafted from monitor events and approved by a person, updates published to the page, subscribers, chat and social channels at once, a full incident archive with post-mortems, status page uptime published, and accessibility of the page stated.

How the tool fits a team and a deployment pipeline: a documented REST API to create and read monitors, status pages and incidents, a Terraform provider, CLI or monitoring-as-code workflow, checks run from CI/CD before a deploy, bulk import of monitors, integrations with ticketing and chat tools, team members with roles, single sign-on (SAML) and SCIM, audit logs, several teams or client accounts in one organisation, white-label or client reporting for agencies, and two-factor authentication.

0 — No API, no team accounts; one login per account and monitors are set up only by hand.

3 — A web dashboard with a few team members; the API, roles and multi-client set-up are basic or not described.

5 — A documented REST API covering monitors and status pages, webhooks, team members with roles, two-factor authentication, bulk import or a CSV upload of monitors, and several projects, teams or client groups in one account.

8 — A Terraform provider or monitoring-as-code CLI with checks kept in version control, checks triggered from CI/CD, single sign-on (SAML), SCIM provisioning, audit logs, sub-accounts for clients with their own logins, and white-label client reports.

10 — Administration that scales across many teams and clients: every setting reachable by API and code with parity stated, granular roles per resource, SSO enforced with SCIM, audit logs exportable to a SIEM, and agency or reseller accounts with separate billing.

What the record is worth and whether the monitor itself can be trusted: uptime and SLA reports per monitor and period, response time charts and percentiles, scheduled reports by email, client-facing reports, how long check results and incident history are kept, export of results by CSV or API, the vendor's own public status page and incident history, its SLA, the probe IP addresses and user agent published for allow-listing, and an open-source or self-hosted edition.

0 — No history of any kind; only the current state is shown.

3 — An uptime percentage and a response time chart per monitor; retention, export and the vendor's own status are basic or not described.

5 — Uptime and response time reports per monitor and period, SLA reports, scheduled email reports, the retention period of check results stated, CSV or API export, the probe IPs published, and the vendor's own public status page.

8 — Response time percentiles and breakdowns (DNS, connect, TLS, first byte), client-ready branded reports, retention of a year or more stated per plan, a raw export of check results, the vendor's incident history and post-mortems public, and an SLA with credits published.

10 — A record that holds up in an audit: SLA calculations with their method stated, incident records suitable for ISO 27001, NIS2 or DORA evidence, full history exportable in an open format, a self-hosted or open-source edition with feature parity stated, and the vendor's own availability over several years published.

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where account data, alert contacts (names and phone numbers of the people on call), status page subscribers and check results are stored and processed, and who the subprocessors are (hosting, SMS and phone gateways, email delivery, support and payment tools). Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline. Probe locations outside Europe are part of what the product does and are not counted against it; where the data is stored and who processes it is. A self-hosted or open-source edition the customer runs on its own European servers counts as the customer's chain, whatever the vendor's seat.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, subprocessors unnamed, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist, but hosting location is unstated or non-EU and the subprocessors are not listed.

5 — EU hosting available and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, but parts of the chain (SMS and call gateways, email, support, payment) run through non-EU providers without a stated safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessors listed with their locations, a data processing agreement published, and security certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) stated — or a self-hosted edition documented that keeps every record on the customer's own servers.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, or a self-hosted open-source edition with no call home, data export and deletion documented, and certifications published with their scope rather than implied.

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: price per tier by number of monitors, check interval and status pages, team seats and on-call responders, what SMS and phone alerts cost, which features (multi-step or browser checks, SSO, longer retention, private locations, white-label) cost extra, the free tier and its limits, overage handling, minimum term and VAT.

0 — No public prices at all; every customer is a sales call.

3 — A starting price or a free tier exists, but how cost scales with monitors, intervals, seats or alerts is unclear.

5 — Tiers are public with their monitor count, interval and main inclusions, but at least one commonly needed piece (SMS or call alerts, extra seats, extra status pages, SSO, longer retention) is unpriced or "on request".

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its scaling rule (monitors, interval, seats, responders, status pages), SMS and call costs stated, add-ons priced, overage handling stated, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: annual cost derivable for a given number of monitors, interval, team size and alert volume, with every add-on, overage and support fee and the cancellation and data-return terms published.