Quick answer
UptimeRobot - UptimeRobot gives you five times the monitors for free: 50 against Better Stack's 10. Better Stack gives you fewer monitors but adds logs, traces, metrics, error tracking and session replay to the same free account.
How the free tiers compare
Better Stack's free plan covers 10 monitors and heartbeats, one status page, Slack and email alerts, 100,000 exceptions a month, 5,000 session replays, 30 GB of metrics, and 3 GB each of logs, traces and web events kept for 3 days. UptimeRobot's free plan covers 50 monitors checked every 5 minutes, 3 months of data retention, 5 integrations and 1 basic status page. UptimeRobot needs no credit card to sign up.
Better Stack vs UptimeRobot free tier, side by side
| Better StackFTV 49 | UptimeRobotFTV 53 | |
|---|---|---|
| Free monitors | 10 monitors and heartbeats | 50 monitors |
| Data retention | 3 days for logs, traces and web events | 3 months |
| Telemetry on the free plan | 100,000 exceptions/month, 5,000 session replays, 30 GB metrics, 3 GB logs, 3 GB traces | Uptime monitoring and status pages |
| Status pages | 1 status page | 1 basic status page |
| First paid plan price | Responder license - $29/mo billed annually, $34/mo monthly | Solo - from $12/mo billed annually, $13/mo monthly |
After you outgrow the free tier
Better Stack sells uptime and incident management as a Responder license at $29 a month billed annually. The license adds on-call, incident management and unlimited phone and SMS alerts. UptimeRobot's Solo plan starts at $12 a month billed annually with 10 monitors, a 60-second check interval, 3 status pages on your own domain and 12 months of retention. Solo starts with fewer monitors than the free plan, so you pay for the faster checks and longer history, not for more monitors.
Cost at real usage
| Usage | Better Stack | UptimeRobot |
|---|---|---|
| One person moving to a paid plan | $29/mo for one Responder license, with checks as often as every 30 seconds | $12/mo for Solo, with 60-second checks |
| A small team that needs 100 monitors | $71/mo billed annually: a $29 Responder license with 10 monitors, plus 2 packs of 50 extra monitors at $21 each | $39/mo for Team on annual billing, with 100 monitors and 3 seats |
Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.
When to pick each one
Pick Better Stack when…
- You want logs, traces and error tracking next to your uptime checks.
- You watch 10 endpoints or fewer.
- You want 5,000 session replays a month to see what a user did before something broke.
Pick UptimeRobot when…
- You watch more than 10 endpoints. The free plan allows 50 monitors.
- You want to sign up without a credit card.
- You want 3 months of monitoring history.
- You only need uptime checks and a status page.
Bottom line
Pick UptimeRobot if you need more free monitors and a cheap first paid step. Pick Better Stack if you want logs, traces and error tracking in the same free account as your uptime checks.
Read the full listings: Better Stack and UptimeRobot. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.