Uptime Kuma is an open source uptime monitoring tool that tracks the availability of websites, APIs, and services from your own server, sending instant alerts through Slack, email, Telegram, PagerDuty, and 90+ other channels when something goes down.
The Problem
Services like UptimeRobot and Better Uptime run monitoring from their own infrastructure, which means a third party sees every URL, API endpoint, and internal hostname you're monitoring. For teams monitoring internal services behind a VPN, staging environments, or APIs containing sensitive route information, external monitoring creates an information leak. Free tiers on commercial tools limit the number of monitors and check frequency, which is often insufficient for production-grade coverage.
How Uptime Kuma Solves It
Uptime Kuma runs as a lightweight Node.js application on your own server and sends monitoring checks from there. Create monitors for HTTP(S) endpoints, TCP ports, DNS records, Docker containers, and database connections. A clean status dashboard shows current and historical uptime per monitor. When a check fails, Uptime Kuma sends notifications through whichever alert channels you configure. MIT licensed; runs as a Docker container in under a minute.
Key Features
- Multi-protocol monitoring: HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, DNS, ping, Docker container health, and database connection checks
- 90+ alert channels: Slack, email, Telegram, PagerDuty, webhook, and many more notification providers
- Status pages: public-facing status pages for customers showing service health
- Response time history: per-monitor response time charts for detecting degradation before outages
- Certificate expiry monitoring: alerts before TLS certificates expire
- MIT licensed; runs as a Docker container with SQLite persistence
Self-Hosting
Runs as a Docker container on any Linux server. Start with docker run -d --restart=always -p 3001:3001 -v uptime-kuma:/app/data louislam/uptime-kuma:1 and open the web UI on port 3001. SQLite is the default database; no additional infrastructure required.
License
MIT. Free to use, modify, and distribute for personal or commercial use without restriction.
Who It's For
Uptime Kuma is best for developers and infrastructure teams at startups and small companies who need production-quality uptime monitoring without paying per-monitor fees or exposing internal service URLs to an external monitoring vendor.
Compared to UptimeRobot
Unlike UptimeRobot, Uptime Kuma runs on your own server so monitoring checks never reveal your internal service topology to a third party. UptimeRobot offers globally distributed checks and a simpler setup with no server to manage; Uptime Kuma provides unlimited monitors, privacy for internal services, and no per-monitor costs.
