The latest articles on DEV Community by pipka (@vladislavs_vrubevskis_3c). https://dev.to/vladislavs_vrubevskis_3c https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F3974898%2Fc0e8d845-a9fd-42b1-8bfc-4b1af1c443ba.png https://dev.to/vladislavs_vrubevskis_3c en pipka Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:15:48 +0000 https://dev.to/vladislavs_vrubevskis_3c/why-i-stopped-self-hosting-uptime-kuma-and-built-a-hosted-alternative-1a1p https://dev.to/vladislavs_vrubevskis_3c/why-i-stopped-self-hosting-uptime-kuma-and-built-a-hosted-alternative-1a1p <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fbk89qwstwqb3e16hv8oo.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fbk89qwstwqb3e16hv8oo.png" alt=" " width="800" height="500"></a></p> <p>I used Uptime Kuma for about a year. It's a great tool. Clean UI, <br> lots of integrations, active community. But at some point I realized <br> something annoying: I was spending more time keeping my monitor alive <br> than actually building my projects.</p> <h2> The problem with self-hosted monitoring </h2> <p>My setup was simple: a cheap VPS, Docker, Uptime Kuma running inside. <br> It worked fine until the VPS had a bad day. Or needed a restart. <br> Or an update broke something.</p> <p>The irony is real: your uptime monitor needs its own uptime monitor.</p> <p>And for a solo developer with three side projects, maintaining <br> infrastructure just to know when things break felt like too much overhead.</p> <h2> What I actually needed </h2> <p>When I thought about it, my requirements were simple:</p> <ul> <li>Check my URLs automatically every few minutes</li> <li>Send me a Discord message when something goes down</li> <li>Tell me when it comes back up</li> <li>Tell me WHY it went down, not just that it did</li> </ul> <p>That last point bothered me most about existing tools. Getting an <br> alert that says "your site is down" is useful. Getting one that says <br> "connection timed out after 10s" or "SSL certificate error" is <br> actually actionable.</p> <h2> So I built PingWatch </h2> <p>PingWatch is a hosted uptime monitor. No server, no Docker, <br> no config files. You sign up, add your URL, pick your alert channel <br> (Telegram, Discord, Slack, or Email), and it starts checking <br> every 5 minutes.</p> <p>The alert includes a short reason for the downtime. When the site <br> recovers, you get another message with the total downtime duration.</p> <p>Setup takes under 2 minutes. I timed it.</p> <h2> Who it's for </h2> <p>Honestly, it's for developers like me. People who want monitoring <br> that just works without becoming a project of its own.</p> <p>If you're running one or two side projects, an MVP, or a small SaaS, <br> you probably don't need a complex observability stack. You need <br> to know when your site is down, why, and when it's back.</p> <h2> Try it </h2> <p>PingWatch is free to start. Unlimited monitors cost $7/month.</p> <p>If you've been running Uptime Kuma and find yourself maintaining <br> it more than using it, give PingWatch a try.</p> <p><a href="https://pingwatch.org" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://pingwatch.org</a></p> <p>Would love feedback from anyone who's dealt with the same problem.</p> webdev devops opensource sideprojects