# PingRobot

> PingRobot (pingrobot.io) is an uptime monitoring service. It checks websites, APIs (with JSON rules on the response), keywords, DNS records, TCP ports and cron jobs (heartbeats) from Cloudflare's network, re-checks failures from a second region before alerting, and alerts by email and signed webhooks (every plan) and Slack, Discord and ntfy push notifications (Pro) when a monitor goes down and when it recovers. It reminds you before SSL certificates and domains expire, pauses checks during maintenance windows, and hosts public status pages with announcements, SLA targets and status badges. It has a REST API, an OpenAPI 3.1 document and a remote MCP server for AI assistants.

## When PingRobot fits

- Small teams, freelancers, agencies and SaaS founders who want uptime, SSL, domain, DNS, API and cron monitoring with a status page, and want most of it on a free plan.
- Developers who manage monitoring from code (REST API, OpenAPI) or from an AI assistant (MCP server).
- Not a fit (today): SMS or phone-call alerts, ICMP ping or UDP monitors, browser (synthetic) checks, choosing check regions, checks more often than every 30 seconds.

## Features

- HTTP(S), keyword, API (JSON rules), DNS record, TCP port and heartbeat (cron job) monitors
- Checks every 5 minutes (Free), every minute (Pro) or every 30 seconds (Business); failures re-checked from a second region
- Alerts by email and signed webhooks on every plan; Slack, Discord and ntfy push notifications on Pro
- Alert delay, repeat reminders while a monitor stays down, and one summary instead of many when several monitors fail together
- Custom HTTP requests: method, headers, body, expected status codes; slow-response alerts
- SSL certificate expiry and problem alerts (hostname mismatch, missing intermediate, issuer change)
- Domain expiry reminders via RDAP
- Maintenance windows: one-off, daily and weekly, with time zones
- Public status pages on <slug>.pingrobot.io (Pro: your own domain and password protection), announcements, email subscribers (Pro), SLA targets, badges, noindex and show/hide options
- REST API (pingrobot.io/api/v1), OpenAPI 3.1 document and a remote MCP server (pingrobot.io/mcp) on every plan

## Plans

- Free: $0, 10 monitors, checks every 5 minutes, email and webhook alerts, SSL and domain expiry reminders, maintenance windows, 1 status page, REST API and MCP, 30 days of history.
- Pro: $9/month or $90/year, 50 monitors, checks every minute, email, webhook, Slack, Discord and ntfy alerts, 5 status pages on your own domain with email subscribers, 1 year of history.
- Business: $29/month or $290/year, 250 monitors, checks every 30 seconds, everything in Pro, 100 status pages on your own domains, 2 years of history, and 10 team members (admins and viewers).
- Every feature by plan: https://pingrobot.io/pricing
- Pricing: https://pingrobot.io/pricing

## Developers

- [REST API docs](https://pingrobot.io/docs/api): Bearer API keys (read-only or read & write), monitors, alert contacts, maintenance windows, status pages and announcements; 120 requests a minute per key.
- [OpenAPI 3.1 document](https://pingrobot.io/api/v1/openapi.json)
- [MCP server docs](https://pingrobot.io/docs/mcp): remote MCP server at https://pingrobot.io/mcp for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code.
- [Webhook docs](https://pingrobot.io/docs/webhooks): signed JSON events (HMAC-SHA256).
- [Status page on your own domain](https://pingrobot.io/docs/status-page-domain)
- [PingRobot bot](https://pingrobot.io/docs/bot): what the checker sends and how to allow it.

## Comparisons

- [UptimeRobot Alternative — PingRobot vs UptimeRobot (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/uptimerobot): PingRobot vs UptimeRobot compared: free plans, $9 plans, SSL and domain expiry, cron heartbeats, webhooks and status pages, from their pricing page.
- [Better Stack Alternative — PingRobot vs Better Stack](https://pingrobot.io/compare/better-stack): PingRobot vs Better Stack (Better Uptime): free plans, paid pricing, webhooks, SSL and domain expiry, heartbeats and status pages, from their pricing page.
- [Pingdom Alternative — PingRobot vs Pingdom (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/pingdom): PingRobot vs Pingdom compared: a free plan vs a trial, prices for 10 and 50 checks, SSL and domain expiry, heartbeats, webhooks and status pages.
- [StatusCake Alternative — PingRobot vs StatusCake (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/statuscake): PingRobot vs StatusCake compared: free plans, $9 vs $20.41 paid plans, SSL and domain checks on every site, signed webhooks and status pages.
- [HetrixTools Alternative — PingRobot vs HetrixTools](https://pingrobot.io/compare/hetrixtools): PingRobot vs HetrixTools compared: free plans, 50 monitors for $9 vs 30 for $9.95, custom API requests, signed webhooks and SLA reports.
- [Cronitor Alternative — PingRobot vs Cronitor (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/cronitor): PingRobot vs Cronitor compared: free plans, $9 flat for 50 monitors vs $2 per monitor plus $5 per user, cron heartbeats, uptime checks and webhooks.
- [Healthchecks.io Alternative — PingRobot vs Healthchecks.io](https://pingrobot.io/compare/healthchecks-io): PingRobot vs Healthchecks.io for cron job monitoring: free plans, $9 vs $20 paid plans, heartbeats plus website, SSL and domain checks in one account.
- [Uptime Kuma vs PingRobot — Self-Hosted or Hosted?](https://pingrobot.io/compare/uptime-kuma): Uptime Kuma vs PingRobot: free self-hosted software vs a hosted free plan. Server cost, updates, single location vs second-region checks, and features.
- [Checkly Alternative — PingRobot vs Checkly (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/checkly): PingRobot vs Checkly compared: free plans, $9 vs $24 for 50 one-minute monitors, maintenance windows on Free, SSL and domain expiry, webhooks.
- [PingPing Alternative — PingRobot vs PingPing (2026)](https://pingrobot.io/compare/pingping): PingRobot vs PingPing compared: a free plan vs a 14-day trial, 50 monitors for $9 vs 25 for €30, heartbeats, keyword, TCP and domain expiry checks.
- [Oh Dear Alternative — PingRobot vs Oh Dear](https://pingrobot.io/compare/oh-dear): PingRobot vs Oh Dear compared: a free plan vs a 10-day trial, 50 monitors for $9 vs 2 sites for $17, and what Oh Dear's site checks add.
- [Hyperping Alternative — PingRobot vs Hyperping](https://pingrobot.io/compare/hyperping): PingRobot vs Hyperping compared: 250 thirty-second monitors for $29 vs $74, 50 monitors for $9 vs $24, free plans, status pages and on-call.
- [Uptime.com Alternative — PingRobot vs Uptime.com](https://pingrobot.io/compare/uptime-com): PingRobot vs Uptime.com compared: a free plan vs none, 50 monitors for $9 vs 10 basic checks, 250 thirty-second monitors for $29, and where Uptime.com wins.

## Guides

- [Uptime Monitoring API: Create and Manage Monitors From Code](https://pingrobot.io/blog/uptime-monitoring-api): Automate uptime monitoring with an API - create monitors on signup, silence checks during deploys, feed a dashboard and sync monitors from a list.
- [Scheduled Maintenance Without False Alerts: Maintenance Windows Done Right](https://pingrobot.io/blog/scheduled-maintenance-without-false-alerts): How to pause uptime monitoring during maintenance - one-off and recurring windows, time zones, SLA impact, status page notices and a deploy script.
- [ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR: What It Means and How to Fix It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/err-ssl-protocol-error): ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR means the TLS handshake broke before any certificate check. Causes and fixes, tested with openssl s_client, curl and nmap.
- [ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED: What It Means and How to Fix It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/err-connection-refused): ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED means nothing accepted the connection on that port. What it means at the TCP level, and fixes with curl, ss and firewalls.
- [Check If Your Site Is Down From Claude, Cursor or VS Code (MCP)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/check-uptime-from-claude-with-mcp): Connect an uptime monitoring MCP server to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor or VS Code and ask what is down, why, and what changed - safely.
- [What Is a Status Page? Examples and What to Put on It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/what-is-a-status-page): A status page shows whether a service is working and lists past incidents. Learn public vs private pages, which components to list and how to word updates.
- [Status Page Examples: What Good Ones Have in Common](https://pingrobot.io/blog/status-page-examples): What good status pages share: clear components, 90-day history bars, the current incident on top, maintenance notices, subscriptions and time zones.
- [How to Put Your Status Page on Your Own Domain (status.yourcompany.com)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/status-page-custom-domain): Point status.yourcompany.com at a hosted status page with a CNAME record. Why a subdomain, Cloudflare proxy settings, certificates, CAA and common errors.
- [Incident Post-Mortem Template (Blameless, With an Example)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/post-mortem-template): A blameless incident post-mortem template with every section explained, a filled-in example, and tips for running the review meeting and following up.
- [Outage Notification Templates for Every Stage of an Incident](https://pingrobot.io/blog/incident-communication-templates): Copy-paste outage messages for investigating, identified, monitoring, resolved, scheduled maintenance and follow-up, for status pages, email and social.
- [DNS Monitoring: Catch Record Changes Before They Take You Offline](https://pingrobot.io/blog/dns-monitoring): Which DNS records to monitor (A, CNAME, MX, SPF, DMARC, NS, CAA), how DNS outages really happen, how TTLs delay fixes, and dig commands to check them.
- [Best Uptime Monitoring Tools in 2026 (Free and Paid, Compared)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/best-uptime-monitoring-tools): UptimeRobot, Better Stack, Pingdom, StatusCake, HetrixTools, Cronitor, Uptime Kuma, Checkly and PingRobot compared on free plans, prices and strengths.
- [API Monitoring With JSON Assertions](https://pingrobot.io/blog/api-monitoring-json-assertions): What to assert on an API or health response, how JSON paths like $.data[0].id work, real examples and the pitfalls that cause noisy or useless checks.
- [Alert Fatigue in Uptime Monitoring: How to Get Fewer, Better Alerts](https://pingrobot.io/blog/alert-fatigue): Cut uptime alert noise without missing outages - second-location confirmation, alert delays, reminders, maintenance windows, routing and sane timeouts.
- [What Happens When an SSL Certificate Expires?](https://pingrobot.io/blog/what-happens-when-ssl-certificate-expires): An expired SSL certificate triggers browser warnings and breaks APIs, webhooks and mobile apps. What users see, how to fix it fast and how to prevent it.
- [What Happens When a Domain Expires? The Stages, Step by Step](https://pingrobot.io/blog/what-happens-when-a-domain-expires): When a domain expires, the site and email stop working, then come renewal grace, a 30-day redemption period and pending delete. Timelines and prevention.
- [SSL Certificate Monitoring: What to Check and When to Alert](https://pingrobot.io/blog/ssl-certificate-monitoring): What SSL certificate monitoring should check (expiry, host names, chain, issuer), how far ahead to alert, and the renewal automation mistakes to watch for.
- [NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID: What It Means and How to Fix It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/net-err-cert-common-name-invalid): NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID means the certificate does not cover the host name you visited. Wildcard rules, common causes and fixes.
- [Missing Intermediate Certificate: Fixing an Incomplete SSL Chain](https://pingrobot.io/blog/missing-intermediate-certificate): An incomplete SSL chain works in some browsers but fails in curl, apps and APIs. Why, how to detect it with openssl, and how to serve the full chain.
- [How to Monitor a WordPress Site (Uptime, wp-cron, Login Page)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/how-to-monitor-a-wordpress-site): Monitor a WordPress site properly - home page, a keyword on a real page element, the login page, the REST API and wp-cron with a heartbeat.
- [API Monitoring: How to Monitor a REST API's Health Endpoint](https://pingrobot.io/blog/api-monitoring): Monitor a REST API with an HTTP check and a keyword like "status":"ok" on its /health endpoint, plus what to return, latency targets and auth tips.
- [47-Day SSL Certificates: The Lifetime Schedule and What It Means](https://pingrobot.io/blog/47-day-ssl-certificates): Public TLS certificates drop to 200 days in 2026, 100 days in 2027 and 47 days in 2029. The exact dates, the validation reuse changes and how to prepare.
- [Which URLs Should You Monitor? A Checklist by Site Type](https://pingrobot.io/blog/what-urls-should-you-monitor): A practical checklist of the URLs, ports and background jobs to monitor for marketing sites, SaaS apps, online stores, APIs, WordPress and scheduled jobs.
- [SLA vs SLO vs SLI - Definitions, Examples and Error Budgets](https://pingrobot.io/blog/sla-vs-slo-vs-sli): SLI is what you measure, SLO is the target you aim for, SLA is the promise with consequences. Clear examples, error budget math and a starter set.
- [What Is MTTR? Mean Time to Recovery, MTTD and MTBF Explained](https://pingrobot.io/blog/mttr-mean-time-to-recovery): MTTR is the average time from failure to full recovery. Learn the formulas for MTTR, MTTD, MTTA and MTBF with a worked example and ways to lower them.
- [How to Monitor a Shopify Store (Storefront, Checkout, Apps)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/how-to-monitor-a-shopify-store): What to monitor on a Shopify store, which parts Shopify runs for you, and which failures only you will notice, from DNS to apps to product pages.
- [How to Avoid False Downtime Alerts](https://pingrobot.io/blog/false-positive-downtime-alerts): Why uptime monitors raise false alarms - network blips, tight timeouts, WAFs, rate limits, DNS - and how to stop them without hiding real outages.
- [DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN: What It Means and How to Fix It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/dns-probe-finished-nxdomain): DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN means the domain name could not be resolved. Fixes for visitors and site owners, with dig and nslookup commands.
- [What Is Uptime Monitoring? How It Works and What to Monitor](https://pingrobot.io/blog/what-is-uptime-monitoring): Uptime monitoring checks your website, API or server on a schedule from outside and alerts you when it fails. Learn how it works and what to set up.
- [My Website Is Down - A Step-by-Step Checklist](https://pingrobot.io/blog/website-down-checklist): Website down? Work through DNS, TLS certificates, hosting, CDN, app errors, the database and recent deploys in order, with the exact commands to run.
- [Uptime Percentage Explained (99.9% vs 99.99% in Minutes)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/uptime-percentage-explained): How much downtime 99%, 99.9%, 99.99% and 99.999% uptime allow per year, month, week and day, how to calculate it, and how to measure it.
- [TCP Port Monitoring - Watch Mail, Database and SSH Ports](https://pingrobot.io/blog/tcp-port-monitoring): TCP port monitoring checks that a server accepts connections on a port. Learn which ports to watch, how to test them and why to use 587 or 465, not 25.
- [Keyword Monitoring - Catch Broken Pages That Return 200 OK](https://pingrobot.io/blog/keyword-monitoring): Keyword monitoring checks that a page contains expected text, catching error pages, blank templates and hacked content that still return 200 OK.
- [HTTP Status Codes - A Plain-English Reference for Monitoring](https://pingrobot.io/blog/http-status-codes): The common HTTP status codes from 1xx to 5xx, each with a plain-English meaning based on RFC 9110 and what it means for uptime monitoring.
- [HTTP 504 Gateway Timeout - Causes, Timeouts and Fixes](https://pingrobot.io/blog/http-504-gateway-timeout): A 504 Gateway Timeout means a proxy gave up waiting for the server behind it. Find the slow upstream, tune proxy_read_timeout, and fix the real cause.
- [HTTP 503 Service Unavailable: Overload, Maintenance, Retry-After](https://pingrobot.io/blog/http-503-service-unavailable): HTTP 503 means a server is temporarily unable to handle requests. Learn the causes, how Retry-After works, and how monitoring should treat planned 503s.
- [HTTP 502 Bad Gateway - What It Means and How to Fix It](https://pingrobot.io/blog/http-502-bad-gateway): A 502 Bad Gateway means a proxy got an invalid response from the server behind it. Learn the causes, the nginx log lines to look for, and the fixes.
- [HTTP 500 Internal Server Error - Causes, Diagnosis and Fixes](https://pingrobot.io/blog/http-500-internal-server-error): What an HTTP 500 Internal Server Error means under RFC 9110, why your app returns it, and how to find the root cause in logs and fix it.
- [How to Monitor Website Uptime for Free (4 Practical Options)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/how-to-monitor-website-uptime-for-free): Four free ways to monitor website uptime, from a hosted free plan to a cron script, with setup steps, trade-offs and a checklist for reliable alerts.
- [How to Create a Status Page (Step by Step, With Templates)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/how-to-create-a-status-page): Create a public status page that customers trust. Choose components, connect monitoring, write incident updates and keep the page off your own servers.
- [Cron Job Monitoring With Heartbeats (crontab and systemd)](https://pingrobot.io/blog/cron-job-monitoring-with-heartbeats): Monitor cron jobs and systemd timers with heartbeat URLs. Copy-paste crontab and systemd examples that ping only on success, plus common pitfalls.

## Free tools

- [cron-expression](https://pingrobot.io/tools/cron-expression)
- [dns-lookup](https://pingrobot.io/tools/dns-lookup)
- [domain-expiry](https://pingrobot.io/tools/domain-expiry)
- [is-it-down](https://pingrobot.io/tools/is-it-down)
- [redirect-checker](https://pingrobot.io/tools/redirect-checker)
- [ssl-checker](https://pingrobot.io/tools/ssl-checker)
- [uptime-calculator](https://pingrobot.io/tools/uptime-calculator)

Full text of the docs and comparisons: https://pingrobot.io/llms-full.txt