UptimeRobot is the go-to free tier choice for basic uptime checks, but its free plan caps you at 50 monitors with 5-minute check intervals and strips out advanced features like heartbeat monitoring, SSL expiry alerts, and maintenance windows. Vigil gives you all of those features on the free tier with no credit card required.
| Feature | Vigil | UptimeRobot |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier monitors | Unlimited | 50 |
| Check interval (free) | Configurable | 5 minutes |
| Check interval (paid) | Configurable | 1 minute |
| HTTP/HTTPS monitoring | ||
| Keyword / content checks | paid | |
| SSL expiry alerts | multi-threshold | paid |
| Heartbeat / cron monitoring | paid only | |
| TCP port monitoring | Coming soon | |
| Public status pages | limited free | |
| SVG status badges | ||
| Maintenance windows | paid | |
| Alert escalation | ||
| Incident history | ||
| Response time tracking | ||
| Monitor tags / labels | ||
| Slack alerts | ||
| Discord alerts | ||
| Telegram alerts | ||
| Webhook alerts | ||
| Email alerts | ||
| REST API | paid | |
| No credit card required |
Unlimited free monitors
UptimeRobot caps the free tier at 50; Vigil imposes no monitor limit.
SSL expiry monitoring included free
Multi-threshold alerts at 30, 14, 7, 3, and 1 day before expiry — no upgrade needed.
Heartbeat / cron monitoring on free tier
Monitor background jobs and scheduled tasks with a simple ping URL. UptimeRobot requires a paid plan for this.
Alert escalation built in
Automatically re-alert a secondary channel if a monitor stays down past a configurable delay. UptimeRobot has no equivalent.
Telegram alerts on free tier
UptimeRobot does not support Telegram at any tier.
UptimeRobot
Free
Pro — ~$7/month
Vigil
Free — $0, forever
Get unlimited monitors, SSL expiry alerts, heartbeat monitoring, and more — all free.
Start monitoring freeNo credit card required. No time limit on the free plan.