Best Status Page Tools Compared: Free and Paid Options

A status page is the place customers look when something seems broken. It reduces repeat support tickets, shows you are in control, and gives incidents a public record. There are two broad kinds of tool: dedicated status page products, and uptime monitors that include a status page. This roundup covers both, including our own free status page, and is honest about where ours is limited. SiteDownCheck is a new, small service.

Competitor details are from official pages as read in October 2026. Plans change often, so check their pricing page before you decide. We did not verify anything we do not state explicitly here.

What a status page needs to do

Before comparing tools, decide what job the page has:

1. Show current state per component. Website, API, checkout, login, each marked operational, degraded or down.
2. Be updatable by hand. Automatic status from a monitor is useful, but during a real incident someone must write what is happening and what to expect.
3. Let people subscribe. Email, and sometimes SMS or webhooks, so customers do not have to refresh a page.
4. Show history. A calm record of past incidents builds trust more than a blank page does.
5. Live somewhere that does not fail with you. A status page hosted on the same infrastructure as the site is useless in an outage.
6. Match your brand. A custom domain and logo matter for customer-facing pages and often cost more.

Our status page guide and communication templates cover the writing side.

The options

Dedicated products

Atlassian Statuspage is the most recognized dedicated product. Its pricing page lists a free plan with limits on subscribers, components, team members and metrics, and several paid public-page tiers, plus private pages for internal audiences and audience-specific pages. It also lists REST API access and role-based access on higher tiers. It is a strong fit if you want a mature, incident-focused page with subscriber management and a vendor your enterprise customers know. The trade-off is that it is a separate product to maintain: it does not detect failures by itself, so you either update it manually or connect a monitor.

Instatus is built around status pages, and lists monitors, subscribers and team members in its plans. Its free plan, at the time of writing, listed email-only alerts and a subscriber cap, with custom domains and SMS on paid tiers. It also says non-profits and open-source projects can request free Pro accounts. Verify current terms on their pricing page.

Monitors with built-in pages

The simplest setup is a monitor that updates its own status page from check results. You get automatic component status without wiring two tools together.

UptimeRobot, Better Stack and Hyperping each list one status page on their free plans. They differ in what the rest of the product does: UptimeRobot is monitor-heavy, Better Stack adds on-call and logs, and Hyperping pairs uptime with incident tooling.

HetrixTools states unlimited public status pages on its homepage, which stands out if you manage many projects.

updown.io includes hosted status pages with usage-based pricing for the checks that feed them.

Where SiteDownCheck fits

Our free status page is deliberately simple and driven by your monitors. It includes:

• A public page at sitedowncheck.com/status/yourname with 30-day history.
• Name, colour and the option to hide our footer.
• A maintenance notice during scheduled maintenance windows.
• SVG uptime badges and a status widget you can embed.
• An emailed monthly report.

Limits: one public page on the free plan, no custom domain yet (planned for Pro, with no date or price), no subscriber SMS, and no incident-management workflow or on-call. Our checks also run from a single default location. If you need subscribers, custom domains today, or private pages for employees, a dedicated product such as Statuspage or Instatus fits better.

Who should choose what

• Customer-facing SaaS with subscribers and branding: a dedicated product such as Atlassian Statuspage or Instatus, connected to a monitor.
• Small site that wants automatic status for free: a monitor with a built-in page. Ours, UptimeRobot, Hyperping or Better Stack all qualify, depending on the rest of your needs.
• Many projects or clients: check HetrixTools for page count, or a tool that lists multiple pages on your tier.
• Engineering team with on-call: a platform that combines monitoring, incidents and a page.

If the status page is for a customer-facing business, host it on a domain and infrastructure that is independent from the product it reports on. If the same server is down, the status page must not be.

Writing for the page

Tools are the easy half. During an incident, post early, say what you know and what you do not, and set a time for the next update. After it ends, write a short summary. Our incident postmortem generator and postmortem guide help with that, and maintenance mode done right covers planned work.

Next steps

• Create a monitor and enable a free status page.
• Read the status page guide.
• Add an uptime badge to your README.
• Use the status widget on your site.
• Compare free uptime monitoring tools.

FAQ

Do I need a status page for a small site?

Not always, but it helps as soon as customers ask whether you are down. A free page from your monitor takes minutes.

Should my status page update automatically?

Automatic component status is useful for detection, but add manual updates during real incidents so customers learn what is happening and when to check again.

Can I use a custom domain on SiteDownCheck's free status page?

No. Custom-domain status pages are planned for Pro, which has not launched and has no date.

Where should I host my status page?

Somewhere independent from the product it describes. If both share a server or DNS, an outage can take both down.

Opinions here are our own; verify vendor details yourself. See our editorial policy and disclaimer.