Pingdom is hired to check that a site or endpoint is answering and to tell someone when it is not, often with a status page for customers. That job is small enough to be run by a lightweight open-source tool. What matters is where the replacement runs and who gets the alert.
Nobody revisits an uptime checker that has been quiet. It was set up once, the alerts reach a phone, and the status page address went into customer emails, contracts and the app footer.
That quiet is the reason it sticks. The fear is not the monthly price; it is the one outage that the replacement fails to announce.
The reasonable response is to move slowly: prove the new alerts fire, then cut over.
Only alternatives we have checked. An open-source project is listed with the license its repository reports, on the date shown; one whose license could not be read as a single standard id is not offered as open source. Read the license guide before running any of them.
| Alternative | Kind | License | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | Open source | MIT | Uptime Kuma repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
Each feature below is what the product's own page or README says, linked to where we read it on the date shown. Pros and cons are limited to what those pages state and to what the path itself changes. We do not rank products on quality.
An uptime check is a small job: ask an address whether it answers, and tell a person when it does not. That is why it is rated easy to replace. The part that deserves care is independence. The checker must run somewhere that does not fail at the same moment as the thing it watches.
Uptime Kuma, the open-source option here, is published under the MIT license according to its repository on the checked date. It is software you run, so someone owns the server it lives on and the alerts it sends.
Samples are made up and are not Pingdom's prices. Type in the figures from your own invoice or order form.
The honest yearly cost of running open-source software yourself, set against the bill it replaces, with the seat count where it stops paying.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
Alert delivery is the thing to prove before switching anything off. In outline:
Export or write down every check: address, interval, expected response and who is notified. Mark which ones page a person.
Decide on a host separate from the systems being watched, and who maintains it. Note how it will be backed up and updated.
Recreate five or so of the most important checks in the new tool, with the same addresses and intervals.
Connect the notification channels, then stop a test service on purpose and confirm the right person is alerted within the time you expect.
Recreate the remaining checks and run both tools together for a few weeks, comparing which outages and slowdowns each noticed.
If customers use a status page, set up the new one, point the old address at it with a redirect, and tell customers the new address if it changes.
Export the uptime history you need for reports, then end the old plan inside the contract's notice window.
Run the vendor report for QuickBooks Online or Xero, then open the free audit.
General information, not legal advice. See cancelling without penalties. Last reviewed Oct 25, 2026. Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify them.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned. Pingdom is one of the lines worth a look.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
| Self-hosting, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, tooling | 720.00 |
| Admin and restore-test time | 2,640.00 |
| Total | 3,360.00 |
| One-off set-up (not in the yearly total) | 1,200.00 |
The saving holds only if the time is real. Price the admin hours at what that person's time costs the company, not at zero.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.