Uptime Kuma alternative: Uptimely vs Uptime Kuma
Looking for an Uptime Kuma alternative? Uptime Kuma is the best-known self-hosted uptime monitor there is, and deservedly so. It is free, MIT-licensed, running within minutes of a single docker command, and it speaks to more than 90 notification services out of the box. Uptimely is a hosted monitoring-and-operations platform: uptime checks plus status pages, the full incident lifecycle, on-call escalation, and a REST API. This page compares them fairly, for the point where a Kuma install starts asking for more of your time than it saves.
Where Uptime Kuma is strong
Kuma is free and MIT-licensed, your data never leaves your hardware, and there is no seat count and no bill. It runs from one container, its checks go down to 20-second intervals, and its notification catalogue — 90+ integrations, including the Telegram, ntfy, Gotify and Pushover channels self-hosters actually reach for — is wider than any hosted product's. It also ships multiple status pages you can map to your own domains, certificate and domain-expiry checks, maintenance windows, status badges and a Prometheus /metrics endpoint. If you like running your own infrastructure and one person owns the monitoring, Kuma is genuinely hard to beat, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
Where Uptimely differs
Uptimely is hosted: no server to run, no database to back up, no upgrade to schedule — the monitor watching your infrastructure does not live on your infrastructure. Check history goes to managed PostgreSQL and ClickHouse instead of sharing one database file with your configuration. And the requests that have sat longest in Kuma's own issue tracker are things Uptimely already ships: a REST API and typed SDK that create, update and delete monitors; multi-user accounts with roles; and an operations layer Kuma has no model for — incidents with states and timelines, on-call duty policies with escalation, postmortems, and alert-noise controls such as per-monitor mute, monitor dependencies and criteria judged over a time window rather than a single check.
| Feature | Uptimely | Uptime Kuma |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $0 — 10 monitors, 1 status page, 3 members | Free and MIT-licensed — you provide and run the server |
| Entry paid plan | Pro $29/mo — unlimited monitors & status pages, 25 members | None — your cost is hosting, storage and maintenance time |
| Hosting & upgrades | Managed — nothing to deploy, patch or upgrade | Self-hosted — you run it, back it up and upgrade it |
| Data store | Managed PostgreSQL + ClickHouse for check history | SQLite in a local volume by default; MariaDB optional in 2.x |
| Check frequency | 1-minute (Free and Pro) | Configurable, down to 20-second intervals |
| REST API | /v1 REST API + typed @uptimely/sdk — create, update & delete monitors (read on Free, write on Pro) | No monitor-management API; open feature request since 2021 (issue #118, the repo's most-reacted) |
| Team accounts & roles | Multiple members with roles; Google and Apple sign-in | Single account; multi-user open since 2021 (issue #128) |
| Status pages | 1 (Free) / unlimited (Pro); custom domains with guided DNS setup and managed TLS | Multiple status pages; domain mapping through your own proxy and certificates |
| Incident workflow | Incidents with states, timelines, notes and postmortems | A pinned incident banner on the status page |
| On-call / escalation | Included on all plans, incl. Free | — (no schedules or escalation policies) |
| Alert-noise controls | Per-monitor mute, monitor dependencies, over-time criteria, confirmation re-check, 2 failed checks before an incident by default | Retries before marking down; resend interval while down |
| Alert channels | Slack, Discord, email, SMS, voice call, web push | 90+ notification integrations |
| Telemetry / APM | OTLP logs, traces & metrics; Prometheus /metrics | Prometheus /metrics and ping charts; no logs or traces |
| Probe locations | One vantage point | One vantage point — wherever you host it (remote executors open since 2021, issue #84) |
| Self-hosting | No (managed SaaS) | Yes (MIT, self-hostable) |
Uptime Kuma has no pricing page to quote: every fact above was read from the louislam/uptime-kuma repository (README.md, LICENSE, compose.yaml, server/routers/api-router.js, server/prometheus.js, server/model/) and its public issue tracker on 2026-08-28. The self-signed certificate answer was re-read from src/lang/en.json and server/model/monitor.js in the same repository on 2026-09-27. Issue numbers refer to that repository. Uptimely figures reflect its current plans.
Uptimely's Free plan has 10 monitors, 1 status page and 1-minute checks, with no credit card. Pro comes with a 14-day free trial.
Start free →Is Uptimely a good Uptime Kuma alternative?
Uptimely is a good alternative once monitoring stops being one person's side responsibility — when you want the checks hosted rather than self-run, several teammates with different permissions, a REST API to create monitors from your deploy pipeline, and on-call escalation and incident timelines around the alerts. If you are happy self-hosting, one person owns it, and the notification catalogue is what you value most, Uptime Kuma is excellent and free, and staying on it is a perfectly good answer.
Does Uptime Kuma have an API for creating monitors?
Not for managing monitors. Its HTTP surface covers push heartbeats, status badges and the entry page; the dashboard itself talks to the server over Socket.io, and its API keys authenticate the Prometheus metrics endpoint. Adding, updating or removing monitors over an API has been an open request since July 2021 (issue #118) and is the most-reacted issue in the repository. Uptimely exposes a /v1 REST API and a typed @uptimely/sdk package that list, create, update and delete monitors — read access on Free, writes on Pro.
Does Uptime Kuma slow down with a lot of monitors?
Performance at high monitor counts is a recurring theme in its issue tracker — reports include the dashboard at 1,000+ monitors (issue #5641) and UI actions at 700 monitors (issue #7079), and chart performance for very large monitor counts is still open (issue #5988). How it behaves for you depends on the hardware you give it and which database you configure, since by default configuration and check history share one SQLite file. Uptimely keeps configuration in PostgreSQL and check history in ClickHouse, and the capacity is ours to manage rather than yours.
Does Uptime Kuma support multiple users and roles?
No. Uptime Kuma is a single-account application; user management with roles and permissions has been open since July 2021 (issue #128) and OpenID/SSO since October 2021 (issue #553). Uptimely is multi-user by design — 3 members on Free and 25 on Pro, each with a role — with Google and Apple sign-in, and SAML single sign-on for teams on an identity provider (OIDC SSO is not offered).
How do I monitor a site with a self-signed certificate in Uptime Kuma or Uptimely?
In Uptime Kuma, tick the monitor's "Ignore TLS/SSL errors for HTTPS websites" option, and that check skips certificate verification. Uptimely has no such option. Its HTTP and website checks always verify the certificate, so a self-signed or untrusted certificate makes the check fail and the monitor reports the site as down. To watch the certificate itself, add an SSL Certificate monitor. It still reads a certificate that does not verify, reports whether it is valid, self-signed or expired and how long it has left, and you choose in its criteria which of those counts as down. If you need an internal service with a self-signed certificate shown as up, Kuma's option is the direct answer, and Uptimely does not have one.
Does Uptimely check from more locations than Uptime Kuma?
No, and this is the row where neither product has an advantage. Uptimely probes from a single vantage point today, and Uptime Kuma probes from wherever you happen to host it, which is also one vantage point — remote executors have been an open request there since July 2021 (issue #84). If checking from several networks is a hard requirement, both products are the wrong shortlist.
Can I self-host Uptimely like Uptime Kuma?
No. Uptime Kuma is MIT-licensed and self-hostable; Uptimely is a hosted cloud service only. If running the software yourself is a requirement, Uptime Kuma is the right choice — or OneUptime, which is open-source and covers status pages, incidents and on-call as well.