# Cronitor — Uptime Monitoring & Status Pages

Cronitor by Cronitor, Inc. holds a panel rating of 3/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 3/5), as of 2026-11-02. Provenance: Rest of world; sovereignty: not determined.

- Vendor: Cronitor, Inc. (https://cronitor.io)
- Category: [Uptime Monitoring & Status Pages](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring.md)
- Provenance (editorial classification): Rest of world
- Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor
- Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor/alternatives.md))
- Data as of: 2026-11-06 · evaluated 2026-11-02 · oldest source captured 2026-11-01

**AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology

## At a glance

- Vendor: Cronitor, Inc.
- Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
- Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026
- Free plan: Yes, per the vendor’s own page [S1]

## The panel's verdict

Cronitor, from Cronitor, Inc., founded in California, combines cron-job, heartbeat and website checks with hosted status pages. The strongest uniform results are checks and locations and automation and teams, both at 7 with no spread, crediting intervals as fast as 30 seconds with downtime verified from at least one additional region before alerting, YAML version control through an open-source CLI against a documented REST API, and SAML single sign-on with SCIM provisioning. Pricing transparency scored 7 to 8 on public, computable unit pricing — Business at "$2 /mo per monitor + $5 /mo per user" and a worked "$55 /mo" example, no base fee — while we found no public information on VAT treatment or overage handling. Reports and reliability sits at a flat 6. The widest split is sovereignty, 0 to 2: data residency, hosting and a data processing agreement are recorded as unknown, and judges weighed that undocumented chain differently. Alerting and on-call (6 to 7) and status pages (6 to 7) diverge over native on-call rotations living in external tools.

**Speaks for it:**
- Checks run as often as every 30 seconds, with downtime verified from at least one additional region before anyone is alerted.
- Monitors are managed as code — YAML import and export, an open-source CLI, and a REST API with a published OpenAPI description and scoped keys.
- Unit pricing is fully public with no base fee: Business at "$2 /mo per monitor + $5 /mo per user", with a worked example of "$55 /mo" for 20 monitors and 3 users, billed monthly with no contract.
- Status pages publish incidents automatically from monitors, on a custom domain with HTTPS, password protection and IP allow-lists.
- SAML single sign-on with SCIM provisioning and admin, user and read-only roles is documented.

**Held against it:**
- Sovereignty scores run 0 to 2: data residency, hosting options and a data processing agreement are recorded as unknown, with no public information on the subprocessor chain; the contracting entity is Cronitor, Inc., founded in California.
- Escalation is documented through PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Splunk On-Call and Datadog On-Call, and we found no public information on native on-call schedules, rotations, or acknowledging and resolving from the app.
- We found no public information on VAT treatment, per-country SMS and phone-call costs, or overage handling.
- We found no public information on an SLA with credits, the vendor's own public status page, or a raw export of check results; the vendor's own figure shown is a self-reported 99.997 percent uptime over the last 12 months.
- The captured pages give different figures for the number of check locations — "12+ locations worldwide" beside a list of eleven named regions.

**Best for:**
- You monitor cron jobs, heartbeats and public endpoints together and want one dashboard and alert pipeline reaching the same on-call team.
- You want monitors under version control as YAML, deployed through an open-source CLI and a documented REST API.
- You need a branded status page on your own domain that updates automatically when a monitor fails.
- You want to compute your bill from public pages before talking to sales.

**Avoid if:**
- Your procurement requires documented data residency, hosting options or a data processing agreement before signing; all three are recorded as unknown.
- Your on-call rotations and overrides must live inside the monitoring tool — the documented model sends escalation to PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Splunk On-Call and Datadog On-Call.
- You need many separate status pages — Business includes one, with branded pages at "$25 /mo per page" and private pages at "$50 /mo per page".
- You need checks faster than every 5 minutes on the free tier — the free tier's fastest check frequency is 5 minutes, with 30-second checks from the Business plan.

## Scores by judge and criterion

Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price, or the judge found no public information on that criterion.

| Criterion | The Agency Developer | The SaaS Platform Engineer | The Customer Support Lead | The E-Commerce Operations Manager | The Information Security Officer | The Skeptic |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Checks, locations & failure confirmation | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| Alerting, escalation & on-call | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 |
| Status pages & incident communication | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 | 3.5/5 | 3/5 |
| API, monitoring as code & team administration | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| Uptime reports, data & the vendor's own reliability | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| European sovereignty | 0/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 1/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 |
| Pricing transparency | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | 4/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 | 3.5/5 |
| **Weighted verdict** | **3/5** | **3.5/5** | **3/5** | **3/5** | **3/5** | **3/5** |

### The judges

- **The Agency Developer** (v1.0): Runs hosting and maintenance at a fifteen-person web agency with sixty client sites on WordPress, TYPO3 and Shopware. Has learned about an expired certificate from a client's angry phone call once and does not want a second time. Wants HTTP, keyword, SSL and domain expiry checks set up in bulk, client groups with their own status pages and monthly uptime reports, and a price per monitor that still works at two hundred monitors.
- **The SaaS Platform Engineer** (v1.0): Platform engineer at a forty-person B2B SaaS in Berlin, one of four people on the on-call rotation. Wants multi-step API checks with assertions, kept in Terraform next to the services they test, failures confirmed from a second location before anyone is woken, phone calls and escalation when an alert is not acknowledged, and a status page that updates without someone logging in at 3 a.m.
- **The Customer Support Lead** (v1.0): Leads a support team of nine at a software company whose customers are tax advisers and payroll offices. During the last outage the team answered three hundred tickets that all asked the same question. Wants a status page on the company's own domain with components customers recognise, incident templates, subscribers notified by email, a private page for the largest accounts, and an uptime history they can point to in a contract renewal.
- **The E-Commerce Operations Manager** (v1.0): Runs operations for an online shop selling garden furniture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with half the year's revenue between March and June. The homepage once answered 200 while the checkout threw an error for six hours. Wants the checkout and the payment page checked, not only the homepage, an SMS or call to whoever is on duty that night, and a report that shows the agency what the downtime cost.
- **The Information Security Officer** (v1.0): Information security officer at a mid-sized logistics company that falls under NIS2 and is working towards ISO 27001. Needs every outage recorded with detection time, response and resolution, in a form an auditor accepts. Reads the subprocessor list before the feature page, because the on-call staff's mobile numbers and the status page subscribers are personal data, and wants single sign-on and an audit log before anyone gets a login.
- **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Has seen "30-second checks from 20 locations" that paged the whole team for a single probe's network glitch, a status page that went down with the product it reported on, and "unlimited SMS" with a fair-use clause on page nine. Asks how a failure is confirmed, how long the history is kept and whether it can be exported, where the monitor itself publishes its own outages — and what leaving would cost.

## European sovereignty — proven facts

Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined.

| Dimension | Finding | Points | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Not determined | — | — |
| Hosting location | Not determined | — | — |
| Hosting options | Not determined | — | — |
| Open source | Not determined | — | — |
| Data processing agreement | Not determined | — | — |
| Transfer impact assessment | Not determined | — | — |

## Key facts

Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources).

**Data**
- Retention: 12 [S4]

**Integrations**
- Alert channels: Slack · Microsoft Teams · Discord · Webhooks · Email · SMS · PagerDuty · OpsGenie · Splunk On-Call [S9]
- Alert channels: email · Slack · Microsoft Teams · SMS · PagerDuty · webhooks [S10]
- Alert channels faq: email · Slack · PagerDuty · custom [S2]
- API: Monitors can be created and configured via REST API with API key authentication [S9]
- API docs: yes [S2]
- API docs: API documentation available [S1]
- API endpoints: /api/statuspages · /api/statuspage_components · /api/issues · /api/maintenance_windows [S5]
- API endpoints: Monitors · Telemetry · Metrics [S6]
- API keys: 2 · Telemetry · SDK Integration [S6]
- API resources: Issues API · Notification Lists API · Monitor API [S11]
- Auth scopes: statuspage:read · statuspage:write · yes [S14]
- Basic auth: http_basic_auth · yes · no [S6]
- Chat platforms: Slack · Microsoft Teams · Discord [S10]
- Components endpoints: full CRUD on /api/statuspage_components [S14]
- Config APIs: Groups · Notifications · Integrations · Environments · API Keys [S6]
- Connect services: slack · pagerduty · discord · microsoft-teams · gchat · larksuite · opsgenie · victorops · datadog-on-call · webhook · yes [S16]
- Datadog on call: yes [S11]
- Direct notifications: email · SMS [S10]
- Discord: yes [S11]
- Discord rss: MonitoRSS bot · Discord [S13]
- Environments: crontab · kubernetes · windows · docker · python · celery · node · ruby · sidekiq · php · laravel · http api [S2]
- Google chat: yes [S11]
- Https required: yes · yes · yes [S6]
- Incident APIs: Issue · Maintenance · StatusPage [S6]
- Incident management: PagerDuty · OpsGenie · Splunk On-Call [S10]
- Lark: yes [S11]
- Mcp server: yes [S11]
- Microsoft teams: yes [S11]
- Oauth timeout: 15 [S16]
- Open source sdks: yes [S4]
- Open source sdks: Open-source SDKs offered [S1]
- Openapi: REST API · Telemetry API · monitors · issues · telemetry · https://cronitor.io/api/openapi.json [S6]
- Opsgenie: yes · yes [S11]
- Pagerduty: yes · yes · yes [S11]
- Pagerduty API connection: yes · POST /api/integrations/connect · GET /api/integrations/connect/{token} [S12]
- Pagerduty monitor alert setting: pagerduty:MyIntegration alert setting syntax · yes [S12]
- Pagerduty notification list selection: yes [S12]
- Pagerduty support: incident_management · yes [S12]
- Rate limit: 1000 [S14]
- SAML SSO: SAML SSO configuration documented [S1]
- SAML SSO docs: yes [S2]
- Scopes: monitor:read · monitor:write · monitor:telemetry · issue:read · issue:write · statuspage:read · statuspage:write · site:read · site:write · integration:read · integration:write [S6]
- Sdk: Java · Airflow · GitHub Actions · yes [S2]
- Sdk available: yes [S15]
- Sdks: Python, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, and more [S10]
- Sites API: Sites API [S6]
- Slack: yes · yes [S11]
- Slack rss: RSS app, /feed subscribe · Slack [S13]
- Splunk on call: yes [S11]
- SSO docs: yes [S8]
- Statuspages endpoints: GET /api/statuspages/:key · GET /api/statuspages · POST /api/statuspages · DELETE /api/statuspages/:key · PUT /api/statuspages/:key [S14]
- Teams rss: Workflows app with RSS channel message template · Microsoft Teams [S13]
- Telegram: yes [S11]
- Telemetry API: yes [S10]
- Webhook requirements: yes · 5 · application/yaml · 30 [S15]
- Webhooks: yes [S10]
- Webhooks: yes [S11]
- Yaml async: 202 · yes · 50+ monitors [S15]
- Yaml import export: yes · yes [S15]

**Legal**
- Copyright: Cronitor, Inc [S8]
- Entity: Cronitor, Inc [S5]
- Entity: Cronitor, Inc [S1]
- Founded: 2014 · California [S4]

**Pricing**
- Alert channels: yes [S8]
- Bill example: 3 · 20 · yes · 55 [S8]
- Branded status page: 25 [S8]
- Browser checks: 1 [S8]
- Business features: 12 · 5 [S8]
- Business plan: 5 · 2 [S8]
- Check frequency: 5 · 30 · 30 [S8]
- Component limit: 50 [S14]
- Dashboard users: 1 · per-user pricing [S8]
- Enterprise plan: annual invoice · 6000 [S8]
- Free start: yes [S2]
- Free tier: yes [S5]
- Free tier: Free start option offered ('Start for free') [S1]
- Free tier signal: yes [S4]
- Monitor limit: 5 · per-monitor pricing [S8]
- No base fee: no · no [S8]
- On call integrations: no · yes [S8]
- Private status page: 50 [S8]
- Roles: no · yes [S8]
- SAML SSO: no · 5 [S8]
- SCIM: no · yes [S8]
- Status page subscribers: 50 · 500 · unlimited [S8]
- Status pages: 1 · 1 · unlimited [S8]
- Statuspage limit: yes · 10 [S14]
- Trial: 14 · Business [S8]
- Web analytics: 100000 · 10 [S8]

**Product**
- Access control: public · password · ip_allowlist [S5]
- Access control: public · password protected · yes [S13]
- Account management cli: monitors · status pages · issues · notification lists · Slack · PagerDuty [S16]
- Agent monitoring: Codex · Claude Code · yes [S2]
- Alert channels: Alerting via 12+ integrations including Slack, PagerDuty, Email, Discord, Opsgenie, SMS, Telegram, Splunk On-Call, Phone, Teams, Google Chat, Webhook [S1]
- Alert contents: issue_context · monitor_information · failure_description · recovery_status · action_links [S11]
- Alert delivery: alerts delivered to on-call rotation tools [S4]
- Alert email pagerduty examples: Email · PagerDuty [S4]
- Alert integrations: 10 [S3]
- Alert routing: Slack · PagerDuty · yes [S2]
- Alert triggers: yes · yes · yes [S11]
- Alert types: alerts on job failure, late start, and missed (never started) runs [S2]
- Analytics cookie free: Cookie-free real-user analytics via lightweight script [S1]
- API filtering: type · group · tag · state · env [S15]
- API key kinds: scoped SDK integration keys · telemetry keys · yes [S16]
- API pagination: yes · created · -created · name · -name [S15]
- API read monitors: yes · yes · yes [S15]
- API scope: API exposes dashboard functionality/data, bulk operations and API-only features [S6]
- API scopes: monitor:read · monitor:write [S15]
- API search: job · check · heartbeat · group · tag · ungrouped · /api/search [S15]
- API versioning: Cronitor-Version · 2025-11-28 · 2020-10-01 [S6]
- Assertion evaluation frequency: multiple times per minute [S15]
- Assertion types: Assertions include response time, status code, response body, JSON response, headers, SSL certificate expiry [S9]
- Assertions: status_code · page_content · response_time · certificate_expiry [S3]
- Auth admin flag: --admin · cronitor team · cronitor apikey [S16]
- Auth methods: Supports bearer tokens, basic auth, and custom headers for authentication [S9]
- Auth oauth pkce: OAuth authorization code with PKCE · Google · GitHub · email and password [S16]
- Auto incidents: yes [S5]
- Autopublish incidents: yes [S14]
- Branding options: yes · yes · yes [S13]
- Browser API: yes [S6]
- Bulk delete audit: yes [S15]
- Cert email alerts: team administrators · 7 · 30 [S7]
- Cert expiration UI: 30 [S7]
- Check interval: 30 [S3]
- Check interval range: 24 · 30 [S3]
- Check platforms: http · browser · tcp · udp [S15]
- Check regions selectable: yes [S4]
- Check schedule min: Checks can be scheduled as frequently as every 30 seconds [S9]
- Check schedule range: 30 seconds to 24 hours [S15]
- Check types: Uptime monitoring supports HTTP/HTTPS, browser-based (renders JavaScript), and TCP check types [S9]
- Check vs heartbeat: checks are Cronitor-initiated probes; heartbeats are code-initiated [S4]
- Checks assertions: Assertions for content, performance, and certificates [S1]
- Checks locations: Website/API checks from 12+ worldwide locations [S1]
- Cli open source: Linux · macOS · Windows · yes [S16]
- Cli setup: yes · crontab · Windows Task Scheduler [S2]
- Cli wrapper: CLI wraps the command via cronitor exec without changing the job itself [S2]
- Common flags: json · table · yaml [S16]
- Component autopublish: yes [S13]
- Component descriptions: tooltips on info icon [S13]
- Component groups: yes [S5]
- Component reorder: yes [S5]
- Component status states: operational · degraded_performance · partial_outage · major_outage · under_maintenance [S14]
- Component types: job · check · event · heartbeat · group [S14]
- Component types: monitor components · group components · custom components [S13]
- Components from monitors: uptime_check · cron_job · heartbeat · group · yes [S5]
- Config as code: yes [S3]
- Config as code: YAML and Cronitor CLI [S4]
- Config locations: /etc/cronitor/cronitor.json · /etc/cronitor/cronitor.json · %SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Cronitor\cronitor.json [S16]
- Config methods: dashboard · API · YAML [S3]
- Config permissions: 0600 on Unix, owner-restricted ACL on Windows [S16]
- Config variables: CRONITOR_API_KEY · CRONITOR_PING_API_KEY · CRONITOR_HOSTNAME · CRONITOR_LOG · CRONITOR_USERS · CRONITOR_EXCLUDE_TEXT · CRONITOR_CONFIG · CRONITOR_ENV · CRONITOR_API_VERSION · CRONITOR_DASH_USER · CRONITOR_DASH_PASS · CRONITOR_ALLOWED_IPS [S16]
- Consecutive alert threshold: 1 · 1000 · free accounts, excluding check monitors · 10 [S15]
- Coverage: websites · APIs · servers · firewalls · SSH bastions · mail servers · VPNs [S3]
- Create paused: yes [S15]
- Custom components: yes [S5]
- Custom components: yes · yes [S13]
- Custom domain: yes · yes [S5]
- Custom domain: yes [S13]
- Custom domain dns: yes [S14]
- Custom domain dns: cname.cronitorstatus.com · CNAME [S13]

**Support**
- Alert docs: Escalation policies and maintenance windows documented in Alert Documentation [S9]
- Business: chat · email [S8]
- Developer talk: yes [S2]
- Enterprise: dedicated engineer · priority support [S8]
- Pagerduty contact: support@cronitor.io [S12]
- SAML docs: yes [S5]

180 more facts on the canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor

## Questions

### Is Cronitor European?

No. whats-best.ai classifies Cronitor as Rest of world.

### Where does Cronitor store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 1 Nov 2026.

### Does Cronitor have a free plan?

Yes. Cronitor has a free plan, per [the vendor’s page captured 1 Nov 2026](https://whats-best.ai/evidence/15440).

### What are the best alternatives to Cronitor?

As of 2 Nov 2026, the panel rates [Hyperping (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/hyperping), [Checkly (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/checkly) and [openstatus (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/openstatus) highest among the other 14 Uptime Monitoring & Status Pages products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [Hyperping](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/hyperping) (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [Cronitor alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor/alternatives).

## What this page leaves out

- We found no public information on compliance on the pages we read (cronitor.io, cronitor.io/cron-job-monitoring, cronitor.io/uptime-monitoring, cronitor.io/heartbeat-monitoring, cronitor.io/status-pages, cronitor.io/docs/api and 10 more). If the vendor publishes it somewhere else, send us the page.
- 5 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 integrations fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 1 pricing fact could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and was left out of this page and of the panel’s material.

## Sources

- [S1] Vendor homepage: https://cronitor.io/ (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S2] Features page (cron job monitoring): https://cronitor.io/cron-job-monitoring (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S3] Features page (uptime monitoring): https://cronitor.io/uptime-monitoring (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S4] Features page (heartbeat monitoring): https://cronitor.io/heartbeat-monitoring (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S5] Features page (status pages): https://cronitor.io/status-pages (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S6] API documentation: https://cronitor.io/docs/api (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S7] Documentation (SAML single sign-on): https://cronitor.io/docs/saml-sso (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S8] Pricing page: https://cronitor.io/pricing (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S9] Checks, locations & failure confirmation — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/uptime-monitoring (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S10] Checks, locations & failure confirmation — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/cron-job-monitoring (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S11] Alerting, escalation & on-call — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/alerts (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S12] Alerting, escalation & on-call — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/using-pagerduty-with-cronitor (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S13] Status pages & incident communication — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/status-pages (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S14] Status pages & incident communication — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/statuspages-api (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S15] API, monitoring as code & team administration — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/monitors-api (checked 2026-11-01)
- [S16] API, monitoring as code & team administration — found from sitemap: https://cronitor.io/docs/using-cronitor-cli (checked 2026-11-01)

---

Cite as: whats-best.ai, "Cronitor — Uptime Monitoring & Status Pages", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-11-06. https://whats-best.ai/software/uptime-monitoring/cronitor

Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/1357?target=page