Checkly vs Uptime Kuma
Checkly and Uptime Kuma are both uptime & monitoring tools aimed at developers. Both have a free plan.
Checkly
Synthetic monitoring as code with Playwright
Uptime Kuma
Self-hosted uptime monitoring
| Pricing | Freemium · $24 | Open source |
| Starting price | $24/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Developers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | DE · 2018 | HK · 2021 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Checkly if
Engineering teams using Playwright.
- Tests and monitoring unified
- Developer-first workflow
- Playwright native
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical uptime monitoring (Better Stack).
Choose Uptime Kuma if
Developers and small teams comfortable self-hosting who want free, reliable uptime checks.
- Free and open source
- Very easy to deploy
- Huge range of notifications
Look elsewhere if: Teams needing on-call rotations, SLAs and multi-user management.
Checkly vs Uptime Kuma pricing
Checkly
- Hobby$010 uptime monitors; 10k API, 1k browser runs/mo
- Starter$24/moBilled annually; 50 monitors; 25k API, 3k browser runs
- Team$64/moBilled annually; 75 monitors; 100k API, 12k browser runs
- EnterpriseCustomCustom monitors, 1-sec frequency
Uptime Kuma
- Open source$0MIT license, self-hosted via Docker or Node
Checkly · Key features
- Playwright browser checks
- API checks with assertions
- Monitoring as code via CLI
- CI/CD integration
- Global and private locations
- OpenTelemetry traces
Cons
- Requires coding
- Run-based pricing
- Not a full observability suite
Uptime Kuma · Key features
- HTTP, TCP, ping, DNS, keyword, JSON and Docker monitors
- Push monitors for cron and heartbeat checks
- 90+ notification providers including Slack, Telegram, Discord
- Status pages with custom domains
- Certificate expiry monitoring
- Single-container Docker deployment
Cons
- Self-hosted only; you monitor the monitor
- Single-user by default
- Basic incident management
Checkly vs Uptime Kuma: FAQ
Do Checkly and Uptime Kuma have a free plan?
Yes, both Checkly and Uptime Kuma have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.