TL;DR
UptimeRobot's free plan banned commercial use in December 2024. If you're monitoring a SaaS or any revenue-generating project on their free tier, you're in violation. The five best free alternatives — Stillup, BetterStack, Instatus, HetrixTools, and StatusCake — all allow commercial use, most check faster than every 5 minutes, and none charge you to find out your site is down.
UptimeRobot's free plan used to be the obvious starting point. Fifty monitors, reasonable feature coverage, and enough headroom for most indie projects. Then in December 2024, they updated their Terms of Service: the free plan is now restricted to personal, non-commercial use only.
If you're monitoring a SaaS product — meaning software people pay you to use — you've been in violation for months. The stated consequence is account suspension.
On top of that: the free plan checks your endpoints every 5 minutes. A 5-minute check interval means a fast outage can go undetected for up to 299 seconds — nearly five minutes of users hitting a broken app before a single alert fires. Cockroach Labs' 2025 resilience research found 41% of companies first hear about downtime from a customer, not from monitoring. Slow check intervals are part of why.
Quick comparison
All five tools below allow commercial use on their free plans. Freshping shut down March 6, 2026 — any article still recommending it is out of date.
- —Stillup — 3 monitors, 1-min checks, Slack alerts, status page — commercial use ✅
- —BetterStack — 10 monitors, 3-min checks, Slack alerts, status page — commercial use ✅
- —Instatus — 15 monitors, 2-min checks, status page (email only) — commercial use ✅
- —HetrixTools — 15 monitors, 1-min checks, unlimited status pages (90-day login) — commercial use ✅
- —StatusCake — unlimited monitors, 5-min checks, basic status page — commercial use ✅
1. Stillup — Best for indie SaaS founders
Stillup is the only free tool on this list that combines uptime monitoring and a public status page in a single plan — wired together so your status page updates automatically the moment a monitor fires. No manual "we're investigating" post during an incident. No separate status page subscription.
The free plan includes 3 monitors checked every minute, a public status page, and Slack alerts — the only tool here that includes Slack without a credit card.
- —3 monitors, 1-minute checks — fastest free interval on this list (tied with HetrixTools)
- —Public status page — auto-updates the moment a monitor fires; no manual update needed during an incident
- —Slack alerts on free — the only tool here that includes this without a paid plan
- —Commercial use allowed — no Terms of Service restrictions for SaaS products
- —Constraint: 3 monitors — covers app, API, and auth for one product; not the right fit for 20+ endpoints
1 min
Stillup free plan check interval — vs. 5 minutes on UptimeRobot free
Best for: A single SaaS product where you need fast detection, automatic user communication via a status page, and Slack alerts without paying anything.
2. BetterStack — Best for fast detection + a path to scale
BetterStack's free plan gives you 10 monitors at a 3-minute check interval. Worth flagging specifically: most comparison articles still list BetterStack's free check interval as 30 seconds. That's a paid feature. The free tier is 3 minutes — verify their pricing page directly before assuming.
Three minutes is still meaningfully faster than UptimeRobot's 5-minute free interval: up to 180 seconds of worst-case undetected downtime versus 299.
- —10 monitors, 3-minute checks — not the 30-second interval often misreported
- —Status page with Slack + email alerts included on free
- —3 GB log storage, 3-day retention on the free plan
- —Commercial use allowed
- —Paid plans start at $24/month — best incident management tooling when you scale
Best for: Teams that expect to outgrow a free tier within 6 months and want to start with a platform they won't migrate away from. The incident timeline and post-mortem tooling justify the paid price for teams that take reliability seriously.
3. Instatus — Best status page design on a free plan
Instatus checks every 2 minutes — the second-fastest interval on this list. The status page design is genuinely good: clean incident timelines, professional layout, readable by non-technical customers. It looks like something a funded startup ships, not a free-tier afterthought.
- —15 monitors, 2-minute checks — second-fastest interval here
- —Public status page with subscriber email notifications (up to 200 subscribers on free)
- —5 team members included on the free plan
- —Email alerts only — Slack and webhooks require a paid plan
- —No custom domain on free — yourproduct.instatus.com only until you upgrade
- —Commercial use allowed
Best for: Founders who want the most polished customer-facing status page and don't need Slack alerts right away. The 200-subscriber email notification cap matters if your user base is large.
4. HetrixTools — Most generous free tier by features
HetrixTools has the most feature-dense free plan on this list: 15 monitors at 1-minute check intervals, unlimited public status pages, and unlimited log history. No other free tier matches that combination.
- —15 monitors + 15 server monitors, 1-minute checks — tied for fastest interval
- —Unlimited status pages — unique on any free plan
- —Unlimited log history — no 90-day cutoff
- —4 monitoring locations
- —Commercial use allowed
- —Catch: must log in every 90 days or monitors are automatically paused
The login requirement is the most unusual constraint on this list. For a tool designed to run passively in the background, a mandatory 90-day login creates operational risk. Set a calendar reminder — if you miss the window, your monitoring silently stops.
Best for: Developers who want maximum free coverage — unlimited status pages, fast check intervals, high monitor count — and can tolerate an account activity requirement.
5. StatusCake — Best for unlimited monitors
StatusCake's free plan has no monitor cap. If you need to watch a large number of endpoints — dozens of URLs, multiple environments, third-party dependencies — StatusCake is the only free tool that won't force you to choose which ones to cut.
- —Unlimited monitors — no cap, unique on a free plan
- —5-minute check interval — same as UptimeRobot free; the slowest on this list
- —Basic status page (no custom domain, limited incident features)
- —Email alerts only on free
- —Commercial use allowed
Unlimited
StatusCake free plan monitor count — the only tool here with no cap
Best for: Projects with many endpoints to watch and a tolerance for 5-minute detection windows. Works well paired with a faster-interval tool covering your most critical endpoints.
What happened to Freshping?
Freshping shut down on March 6, 2026, and permanently deleted user data around June 4, 2026. It is no longer available. Any comparison article that still recommends Freshping hasn't been updated since before that date. BetterStack, Instatus, and Stillup are the strongest current alternatives.
How to choose
One SaaS product, want monitoring + status page wired together
Stillup. Three monitors covers your app, API, and auth. The status page updates automatically when a monitor fires, and you get Slack alerts — all without paying anything. See our breakdown of the best free status pages for SaaS if you want a fuller comparison.
Want the fastest detection and most monitors on free
HetrixTools — 15 monitors at 1-minute checks, unlimited status pages. Just know you'll need to log in every 90 days or your monitoring pauses. Stillup is the alternative if you want the same speed without the login requirement (and need Slack alerts).
Planning to scale to a paid plan within 6 months
BetterStack. The free tier is limited but the paid product is the best on this list for incident management. Starting here avoids a migration later.
Want the best-looking customer-facing status page
Instatus. The design and incident timeline view are the strongest on a free plan. 200 subscriber email notifications included.
Have dozens of endpoints to monitor
StatusCake (unlimited monitors, 5-minute checks) or HetrixTools (15 monitors, 1-minute checks). If detection speed matters more, HetrixTools. If you need broad coverage across many URLs, StatusCake.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to UptimeRobot in 2026?
For indie SaaS founders: Stillup — 3 monitors, 1-minute checks, status page, and Slack alerts on the free plan with commercial use allowed. For maximum monitor count: HetrixTools (15 monitors, 1-minute checks) or StatusCake (unlimited, 5-minute checks). For the best upgrade path to a paid plan: BetterStack.
Do any free monitoring tools allow commercial use?
Yes — all five tools on this list allow commercial use at no cost. Stillup, BetterStack, Instatus, HetrixTools, and StatusCake all explicitly permit use for SaaS products and revenue-generating projects. UptimeRobot's free plan banned commercial use effective December 1, 2024.
Which free uptime monitor has the fastest check interval?
Stillup and HetrixTools both check every 1 minute on the free plan. Instatus checks every 2 minutes. BetterStack checks every 3 minutes. UptimeRobot and StatusCake check every 5 minutes.
Can I get free Slack alerts for downtime?
Stillup and BetterStack both include Slack alerts on their free plans. Instatus, HetrixTools, and StatusCake all require a paid upgrade for Slack or webhook integrations.
Is BetterStack's free plan really 30 seconds?
No. The 30-second check interval on BetterStack is a paid feature. The free plan checks every 3 minutes. Many comparison articles still cite 30 seconds — verify the current pricing page directly before assuming.
SourcesUptimeRobot Terms of Service, December 2024 update (uptimerobot.com/terms) · Cockroach Labs, The State of Resilience 2025 · BetterStack Pricing, June 2026 (betterstack.com/pricing) · Instatus Pricing, June 2026 (instatus.com/pricing) · HetrixTools Pricing, June 2026 (hetrixtools.com/pricing) · StatusCake Pricing, June 2026 (statuscake.com/pricing) · BetterStack Community: Freshping Alternatives (betterstack.com/community/comparisons/freshping-alternatives)