How to Monitor Applications Deployed with Coolify

Coolify is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Heroku and Render. It lets you deploy Docker containers, Node.js apps, PHP apps, and more on your own VPS with a clean web UI. It's a popular choice for developers who want full control over their infrastructure without the complexity of raw Kubernetes.

But Coolify doesn't include external uptime monitoring out of the box. This guide shows how to add production-grade monitoring to your Coolify-deployed applications using Vigilmon.

What Coolify Provides vs. What You Still Need

Coolify gives you:

• Deployment automation with GitHub integration
• Container health checks (Docker-level)
• Resource monitoring (CPU, memory, disk) on the server level
• Automatic SSL via Let's Encrypt
• Rolling updates and rollback

What Coolify does NOT provide:

• External HTTP uptime monitoring (is your app reachable from the internet?)
• SSL expiry alerts (if Let's Encrypt renewal fails)
• Alerting when a deployed container crashes and Docker health checks fail
• Multi-region reachability checks

Vigilmon fills these gaps.

Step 1: Identify What to Monitor

For a typical Coolify deployment, monitor:

1. Your application URL — the public domain you've configured in Coolify
2. Health endpoint — /health, /api/health, or /ping
3. Database proxy (if externally accessible)
4. The Coolify dashboard itself — if you manage multiple clients or teams

Step 2: Add a Health Endpoint to Your Application

Coolify supports Docker-level health checks, but you also want an HTTP endpoint Vigilmon can hit from outside:

Node.js / Express:

app.get('/health', (req, res) => {
  res.json({ status: 'ok', timestamp: new Date().toISOString() })
})

Laravel (PHP):

Route::get('/health', function () {
    return response()->json(['status' => 'ok']);
});

Next.js (App Router):

// app/api/health/route.ts
export function GET() {
  return Response.json({ status: 'ok' })
}

Step 3: Configure Monitoring in Vigilmon

1. Go to vigilmon.online and sign in
2. Add monitors:

Monitor 1 — Main application:

• URL: https://your-app.com
• Interval: 5 minutes
• Expected status: 200
• Alert after: 2 failures

Monitor 2 — Health endpoint:

• URL: https://your-app.com/health
• Interval: 1 minute
• Expected status: 200
• Alert after: 1 failure

Monitor 3 — SSL certificate:

• Enable SSL monitoring on your main domain monitor
• Alert at: 14 days before expiry (critical: Coolify uses Let's Encrypt 90-day certs)

Step 4: Monitor SSL Expiry (Critical for Coolify)

Coolify auto-renews Let's Encrypt certificates, but renewal can fail if:

• Port 80 is blocked by a firewall rule
• The domain's DNS has changed
• The Coolify cert renewal cron fails

The first you'll know about this is when your SSL cert expires and browsers show security warnings. Vigilmon's SSL monitoring alerts you 14-30 days in advance, giving you time to investigate and fix renewal.

Step 5: Monitor Multiple Coolify Applications

If you run multiple apps on Coolify (which is its strong suit — it handles multi-app VPS deployments well), add a monitor for each:

App	URL	Interval
Main product	https://your-product.com/health	1 min
API service	https://api.your-product.com/health	1 min
Marketing site	https://www.your-domain.com	5 min
Admin panel	https://admin.your-domain.com	5 min

Step 6: Set Up Alert Channels

In Vigilmon:

1. Go to Settings > Notifications
2. Add your email
3. Optionally add a Slack webhook for team visibility
4. Attach alert channels to each monitor

Coolify + Vigilmon: Better Together

Feature	Coolify	Vigilmon
Deployment automation	✅	❌
Container health checks	✅	❌
External uptime monitoring	❌	✅
SSL expiry alerting	❌	✅
Multi-region checks	❌	✅
Public status page	❌	✅

They cover different layers — Coolify owns the infrastructure layer, Vigilmon owns the availability layer.

Summary

Coolify is an excellent self-hosted deployment platform, but it's not a monitoring tool. Pairing it with Vigilmon gives you full coverage: Coolify handles deploying and running your apps, Vigilmon tells you when they stop being reachable.

Start monitoring your Coolify deployments at vigilmon.online.