A broad, budget-friendly monitor set versus depth on security and change.
StatusCake offers a wide set of monitors — uptime, page speed, SSL, domain, server — at low prices with a free plan. PulseTrace matches the breadth on external checks and goes further on what StatusCake reports as a yes/no: it grades TLS configuration and domain posture, and diffs every check for changes.
| Criterion | PulseTrace | StatusCake |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 10 monitors, 1-minute checks, 1 region, 1 status page — free forever | 10 uptime monitors at 5-minute checks, 1 page-speed, 1 domain, 1 SSL monitor; integrations only |
| Entry price | Team $29/mo (50 monitors, 30 s), Pro $85/mo (200 monitors, 15 s) | Superior $20.41/mo annual ($24.49 monthly): 100 uptime monitors, 1-minute checks, 50 SSL, 50 domain, 1 team member |
| Fastest interval | 60 s Free · 30 s Team · 15 s Pro · 10 s Enterprise | 5 min Free · 1 min Superior · 30 s Business ($66.66/mo annual) |
| Locations | 12 probe regions, per-region results; private probe agent for internal targets | Global locations; custom locations on paid plans |
| Monitor types | 12: HTTP(S), TCP, UDP, DNS, ICMP, WebSocket, traceroute, gRPC, TLS, SSL/TLS security grading, domain security, multi-step API | Uptime (HTTP, TCP, DNS, SMTP, SSH, ping, push), page speed, SSL, domain, server monitoring |
| Security grading | A+–F grade for TLS config, chain, revocation, security headers, cookies, CORS; domain grade for RDAP, DNSSEC, SPF/DKIM/DMARC | SSL expiry and validity, domain expiry alerts; no configuration or header grading |
| Change detection | Fingerprints DNS, TLS, HTTP headers, redirects, content and infrastructure on every check; change events with before/after; anomaly baselines; CT-log & look-alike watch (Pro) | Not a feature |
| Status pages | 1 page on Free, 5 on Team, unlimited + custom domain on Pro, white-label on Enterprise; trust pages with security grades | Public status pages on paid plans |
| Alert channels | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, incident.io, Rootly, email, signed webhooks — no SMS/voice | Email, SMS credits, Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, webhooks and more |
| API & automation | REST API with scoped keys and rate limits; MCP server for AI agents; OpenAPI import | REST API |
| Reporting | Availability, SLA/SLO with error budgets, performance, incident and intelligence reports; scheduled delivery (Pro) | Uptime reports and exports |
| Hosting | Hosted SaaS | Hosted SaaS |
StatusCake column last checked September 2026 from public pricing pages and dated pricing reviews. PulseTrace column reflects current plans. Plans change — tell us if something is out of date.
you want the most monitors per dollar, page-speed scores, or host-level server monitoring.
you care what your TLS and domain configuration looks like and what changed on it; you want incidents and SLA reporting; or you need governance (roles, service accounts, environments) for a larger team.
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