Selecting tools for Monitoring Uptime of Your Website
Before we wrap up, you might wonder which is the “best” website monitoring service. The answer is that there is no right or wrong answer. You can choose any of the tools or services mentioned in this post to monitor uptime of your website.
Tip: You can also check whether a particular website is down or not using third-party sites. Tools like host-tracker.com, Montastic, Updown.io, and isitdownforme allow you to check the uptime of sites without having to create an account or log in.
Screpy for Monitoring Server Uptime
This post about tools for monitoring server uptime is a follow-up to my above post. Screpy’s auto-crawling detects new pages and suggests SEO improvements, managing up to 10 sites in my plan.
Back story: Why I wrote this post
I experienced the “perfect storm” this week with my website. This morning, I was looking up analytics on this blog, number of visits had dropped to 10 percent of daily traffic. I am aware that google algorithms have changed (again) and many are experiencing a drop in traffic… but the numbers were alarming. What exactly went wrong? Possible causes I thought of and checked: a. Changing registrars (long story short, my former registrar pooped and I moved several domains to Porkbun and CloudFlare or CF). But all domains were on CF so should not have been an issue. b. SSL issue – but certification were valid, SSLlabs showed A or A+ rating. c. Site is managed through Gridpane, which sent no errors. d. None of the three Uptime monitors sent an alert about downtime. I use Hetrix Tools, Uptime Robot and Screpy. e. Ping to server showed no result – probably because I use VPN that has been blocked.
Finally, fired up control panel at the vpn provider- lo and behold, server was offline.
Wonder why the alerts did not trigger- maybe because I was only checking the domain and not ip?
Way forward with Server Monitoring Tools
The part of my journey where I used the 6 server uptime tracking services has come to its logical conclusion. Consolidating from six to three tools like Hetrix Tools and Uptime Robot taught me to configure alerts effectively to avoid missed notifications. The combination of three different monitoring tools is still a lot, but I will stay with them for the first part of this year. By mid-2021, my goal is to go back to the original set of two tools: Hetrix Tools and (either of) Uptime Robot and Freshping. I have also read up on multiple DIY / self-hosted setups for server uptime monitoring, since publishing the original post. Those I have decided to try for a later time.
Update:
- I have revisited the setup for the uptime monitors that I use: Hetrix Tools, Uptime Robot, Screpy, and Freshping. Each service will now have two different monitors, checking the service at different intervals. Hope this will resolve the issue of not receiving alerts!
- As of June 2025, dual-monitor setups with varied intervals on Hetrix Tools and Screpy enhance alert reliability.
