Self-hosted and free versus hosted with security and change intelligence.
Uptime Kuma is the most popular open-source, self-hosted uptime monitor: one container, a clean UI, dozens of notification services, and no bill. PulseTrace is a hosted platform that adds multi-region probing, security and domain grading, change intelligence, incidents, SLA reporting and team governance — for teams whose time is worth more than a server.
| Criterion | PulseTrace | Uptime Kuma |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 10 monitors, 1-minute checks, 1 region, 1 status page — free forever | Entirely free (MIT licence); you supply and run the server |
| Entry price | Team $29/mo (50 monitors, 30 s), Pro $85/mo (200 monitors, 15 s) | $0 software; hosting, upkeep and your own time |
| Fastest interval | 60 s Free · 30 s Team · 15 s Pro · 10 s Enterprise | 20-second checks configurable; limited by your host |
| Locations | 12 probe regions, per-region results; private probe agent for internal targets | One location — wherever you run it — unless you deploy and federate several instances yourself |
| Monitor types | 12: HTTP(S), TCP, UDP, DNS, ICMP, WebSocket, traceroute, gRPC, TLS, SSL/TLS security grading, domain security, multi-step API | HTTP, keyword, JSON query, TCP, ping, DNS, Docker container, push/heartbeat, Steam game server, database and more |
| Security grading | A+–F grade for TLS config, chain, revocation, security headers, cookies, CORS; domain grade for RDAP, DNSSEC, SPF/DKIM/DMARC | Certificate expiry notifications; no 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 | Status pages with custom domains, unlimited |
| Alert channels | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, incident.io, Rootly, email, signed webhooks — no SMS/voice | 90+ notification services including Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, email, webhooks |
| API & automation | REST API with scoped keys and rate limits; MCP server for AI agents; OpenAPI import | Limited API; community tooling |
| Reporting | Availability, SLA/SLO with error budgets, performance, incident and intelligence reports; scheduled delivery (Pro) | Uptime percentages and charts; no SLA/error-budget reports |
| Hosting | Hosted SaaS | Self-hosted (Docker); you own backups, upgrades and availability of the monitor itself |
Uptime Kuma 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're comfortable operating a server, want zero licence cost, need data on-premises, or monitor a homelab or a handful of internal services.
you need checks from several regions, security and change visibility, SLA reporting, or governance for a team — or you simply don't want to run monitoring infrastructure.
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