Status and uptime monitoring
Open-source alternatives to Better Stack Uptime, priced
1 open-source tool that can replace Better Stack Uptime, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Better Stack Uptime on the Responder tier costs $34.00 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Better Stack Uptime here is Uptime Kuma, at $42.30 a month against $34.00, with your own time already counted.
Start here
Better Stack's free tier includes 10 monitors and heartbeats and 1 status page. If that covers you, there is nothing to save.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Better Stack Uptime | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | $4.80 | $42.30 | -$449 | easy | MIT |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Uptime Kuma 91,286 stars
One container with SQLite. Cost scales with the number of monitors and their check interval, not with the number of people reading the dashboard.
At 10 people it needs 0.6 GB of memory and 5.1 GB of disk, which fits the Basic at Kamatera for $4.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 2 hours of work, then 0.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Better Stack Uptime versus Uptime Kuma breakdown · Uptime Kuma at every team size
How the pricing was established
Better Stack Uptime pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
Related
- All status and uptime monitoring compared
- Alternatives to Atlassian Statuspage
- Alternatives to Pingdom
- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | MIT License | JavaScript | 2 h | 0.5 h a month | 91,286 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Better Stack Uptime?
There are 1 on this page, and every one of them is free of licence cost: they are published under MIT. Running one is not free, though. The cheapest of them, Uptime Kuma, costs $42.30 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Better Stack Uptime cost?
Better Stack Uptime Responder costs $34.00 a month at 10 people: USD 34.00 per month. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Uptime Kuma?
$42.30 a month at 10 people. That is $4.00 for the Basic at Kamatera, plus backups, plus 0.5 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Uptime Kuma is cheaper than Better Stack Uptime?
Never, counting $150 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $449.
Which Better Stack Uptime alternative is the easiest to run?
Uptime Kuma, rated easy: about 2 hours to set up and 0.5 hours afterwards.