hostnag vs Better Stack
Better Stack pairs fast uptime, heartbeat and SSL/domain checks with incident escalation, on-call scheduling and log management in one platform. What will break (certificates, domains, mail setup) beside what is already broken, next to the incident and on-call tools Better Stack has.
14 days of Pro to start, then free for 20 hosts. No card, nothing to install.
Side by side
Better Stack read from its public documentation on 2026-09-15. Tell us if it changed.| What breaks | Better Stack | hostnag |
|---|---|---|
| A host goes downwebsite, API, VPN, mail, gateway | Yes | Yes |
| A certificate expiresdays-before thresholds, daily inside the last window | Yes | Yes |
| Better Stack: SSL certificate checks verify current validity and a configurable expiry window (1 to 60 days). | ||
| A domain lapsesregistration expiry from RDAP | Yes | Yes |
| Better Stack: Domain expiration monitoring is built into the uptime and keyword monitor types on a paid plan. | ||
| A certificate is swappedfingerprint changed, wrong host, chain not trusted | Unknown | Yes |
| Better Stack: The SSL certificate checks page documents validity and expiry only; it does not say whether a fingerprint, hostname or chain change is detected. | ||
| A DNS record driftsexpected answer missing or changed | Unknown | Yes |
| Better Stack: The DNS monitor page only describes querying a DNS server with a domain name; it does not document checking the answer against an expected value. | ||
| An ISP link dropsthe public address from several locations, by ping or a TCP port, confirmed by a ping from an internal device | Unknown | Yes |
| Better Stack: No combined external-check-plus-internal-confirmation monitor for an office or ISP link is documented.hostnag: external and internal | ||
| Mail stops being deliveredMX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blocklists, at the expiry cadence of your plan | Unknown | Yes |
| Better Stack: SMTP, POP3 and IMAP monitors are documented as server-reachability checks; nothing documents SPF, DKIM, DMARC or blocklist checking. | ||
| A scheduled job stops runningcron, backups, workers: a heartbeat that goes quiet | Yes | Yes |
| Better Stack: A cron and heartbeat monitor expects a periodic ping and raises an incident if it is missed past its grace period. | ||
| Your nameservers or registrar changenameservers, registrar, DNSSEC, certificate issuer, DNS answers, redirect targets | Unknown | Yes |
| Better Stack: The DNS monitor documentation does not describe watching NS records, registrar data, DNSSEC or redirect targets for a change. | ||
| A vendor you depend on has an incidenttheir status page read for an outage or degraded state, the incident named | Unknown | Yes |
| hostnag: read from their own status page | ||
UNKNOWN means their documentation did not say either way on the day we read it. PARTLY is covered with a limit noted in the cell.
What Better Stack has that we don't
- On-call scheduling and escalation policies bundled with uptime monitoring.
- iOS and Android mobile apps with push, SMS and phone-call alerts.
- A public REST API for managing monitors and heartbeats.
- A bundled log management product (Vector, Syslog or OpenTelemetry ingestion).
Switching
- 01Paste a Better Stack API token (Team Settings, API tokens) in the import dialog; it is used once and never stored.
- 02HTTP, keyword, TCP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP and DNS monitors carry over with their type, target and port; mail-protocol checks become TCP port monitors in hostnag.
- 03Ping (ICMP) monitors carry over as Ping monitors, run from hostnag's own probes.
- 04Cron and heartbeat monitors are not read by this importer yet and are listed as unsupported so nothing is lost silently.
- 05Check intervals snap up to the nearest hostnag preset (1, 5, 15, 60, 360 or 1440 minutes).
- 06Monitors are created up to your plan's limit; the rest stay listed in the preview so nothing is lost silently.
Pricing
A free tier covers 10 monitors and heartbeats with 3-minute checks and one status page; paid uptime plans check as often as every 30 seconds, with extra monitors, heartbeats and incident-response seats billed as add-ons.Free
$0/ mo$0/ yrFor your own handful of hosts.
- Monitors
- 20
- Beacons
- 2
- Groups
- 3
- Status pages
- 1
- Seats
- 3
- Every
- 5min
- Locations
- 1
- History
- 30days
- Channels
- Email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Webhook
- More
- No packs
Pro
$19/ mo$190/ yrFor a team's sites, APIs and gateways.
- Monitors
- 100
- Beacons
- 10
- Groups
- 25
- Status pages
- 10
- Seats
- 10
- Every
- 1min
- Locations
- 3
- History
- 90days
- Channels
- Email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Webhook, PagerDuty, Opsgenie
- More
- Packs of 100 monitors at $15 a month, up to 4; packs of 10 beacons at $10 a month, up to 9
Business
$79/ mo$790/ yrFor many groups: clients, products or offices.
- Monitors
- 500
- Beacons
- 100
- Groups
- ∞
- Status pages
- ∞
- Seats
- ∞
- Every
- 1min
- Locations
- 5
- History
- 365days
- Channels
- Email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Webhook, PagerDuty, Opsgenie, SMS
- More
- Packs of 100 monitors at $15 a month, as many as you need; packs of 10 beacons at $10 a month, as many as you need
Sources
Read on 2026-09-15.- https://betterstack.com/uptime
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/ssl-certificate-checks/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/domain-expiration-monitoring/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/dns-monitor/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/api/create-a-new-monitor/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/cron-and-heartbeat-monitor/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/ios-and-android-mobile-apps/
- https://betterstack.com/docs/uptime/api/
- https://betterstack.com/logs
- https://betterstack.com/pricing
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