OpenPing vs UptimeRobot

UptimeRobot changed their free plan in December 2024. It's now restricted to non-commercial use only. If you're monitoring a business website, SaaS app, or client project on their free tier, you're technically violating their terms of service.

OpenPing's free tier has no such restriction. Monitor your business. Monitor your client's sites. Monitor your side project that makes $12/month. It's all fine.

Side-by-side comparison

The trade-off

UptimeRobot gives you 50 monitors on free. We give you 25. They check every 5 minutes. We check every 3. They restrict commercial use. We don't.

If you need 50+ monitors and don't mind the 5-minute interval, UptimeRobot's Solo plan at $7/month might work for you. But if you're running a business and want a free tier that actually lets you use it for your business, that's where we come in.

Why did UptimeRobot restrict their free tier?

UptimeRobot migrated from dedicated servers to cloud infrastructure, which increased their costs significantly. The free tier became unsustainable for commercial users who were monitoring hundreds of endpoints without paying.

We handle this differently. Our transition-only storage architecture means free users cost us very little to serve. A monitor that stays up doesn't generate storage costs. We only store when something changes. This keeps our infrastructure costs low enough to offer a genuine free tier for everyone.

When UptimeRobot is the better choice

• You need 50+ monitors on the free tier for personal/non-commercial use
• You want multi-step monitors (transaction monitoring)
• You need maintenance windows (available on their paid plans)

When OpenPing is the better choice

• You're monitoring business or commercial sites
• You want faster checks (3 min vs 5 min on free)
• You want 90 days of uptime history on the free tier
• You want a free tier without terms-of-service anxiety