hostnag vs openstatus
openstatus is an open-source status page and uptime monitor built for infra as code: HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP and gRPC monitors declared in YAML or Terraform, run from 28 locations, with an MCP server and self-hosting under AGPL-3.0. One timeline of what will break (certificates, domains, mail setup) and what is broken, with a heartbeat for jobs and links, without writing configuration.
Free for five hosts. No card, nothing to install.
Side by side
openstatus read from its public documentation on 2026-09-17. Tell us if it changed.| What breaks | openstatus | hostnag |
|---|---|---|
| A host goes downwebsite, API, VPN, mail, gateway | Yes | Yes |
| openstatus: HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP and gRPC monitors with status, header and body assertions, from up to 28 locations. | ||
| A certificate expiresdays-before thresholds, daily inside the last window | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: The HTTP monitor reference documents assertions only; nothing says whether certificate expiry raises an alert. | ||
| A domain lapsesregistration expiry from RDAP | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: No domain registration check is documented. | ||
| A certificate is swappedfingerprint changed, wrong host, chain not trusted | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: Nothing documents a certificate check beyond the TLS handshake of an HTTPS monitor. | ||
| A DNS record driftsexpected answer missing or changed | Yes | Yes |
| openstatus: DNS monitors assert the records a lookup returns (equal, not equal, contains, not contains) for A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS and TXT. | ||
| An ISP link dropsthe public address from several locations, by ping or a TCP port, confirmed by a ping from inside the site | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: ICMP monitors watch a public address from outside; nothing documents an inside confirmation for an office or ISP link.hostnag: outside and inside | ||
| Mail stops being deliveredMX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blocklists, at the expiry cadence of your plan | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: A TCP monitor reaches a mail port; nothing documents SPF, DKIM, DMARC or blocklist checks. | ||
| Someone issues a certificate for your domainnew certificates in the transparency logs, daily | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: No certificate transparency log watch is documented. | ||
| A scheduled job stops runningcron, backups, workers: a heartbeat that goes quiet | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: No heartbeat or cron monitor is among the documented monitor types. | ||
| Your nameservers or registrar changenameservers, registrar, DNSSEC, certificate issuer, DNS answers, redirect targets | Partly | Yes |
| openstatus: A DNS monitor can assert the NS answer; nothing documents watching the registrar, DNSSEC or redirect targets. | ||
| A vendor you depend on has an incidenttheir status page read for an outage or degraded state, the incident named | Unknown | Yes |
| openstatus: Nothing documents reading a vendor's status page.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 openstatus has that we don't
- Open source under AGPL-3.0, self-hostable, with private locations in a single small container.
- Monitoring as code: YAML or Terraform applied from the CLI or CI, a typed API and Node SDK, and an MCP server.
- Up to 28 locations per monitor, gRPC monitors, and status pages with password protection.
Switching
- 01Your monitors are already a list: the YAML or Terraform they are declared in, or the CLI's --json output.
- 02Put them in a CSV with at least the columns type and target (name, interval, port, keyword, expected_status and record_type are optional; the import dialog links a template) and upload it in the import dialog.
- 03HTTP monitors become http (a status assertion maps to expected_status, a body assertion to keyword), TCP monitors tcp, DNS monitors dns with their record_type.
- 04Ping (ICMP) monitors carry over as Ping monitors, run from hostnag's own probes.
- 05gRPC monitors have no counterpart in hostnag; watch the port instead.
- 06Check intervals snap up to the nearest hostnag preset (1, 5, 15, 60, 360 or 1440 minutes).
- 07Monitors are created up to your plan's limit; the rest stay listed in the preview so nothing is lost silently.
Pricing
A free Hobby plan covers 1 monitor at 10-minute checks and one status page; Starter is $30 a month for 20 monitors at 1 minute from 6 locations, Pro $100 for 50 at 30 seconds from 28, Scale $500, and Enterprise is custom.Free
$0/ moFor your own handful of hosts.
- Monitors
- 5
- Groups
- 1
- Status pages
- 1
- Seats
- 1
- Every
- 5min
- Locations
- 1
- History
- 30days
- Channels
Pro
$19/ moFor a team's sites, APIs and gateways.
- Monitors
- 50
- Groups
- 10
- Status pages
- 10
- Seats
- 5
- Every
- 1min
- Locations
- 3
- History
- 90days
- Channels
- Email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Webhook
Business
$79/ moFor many groups: clients, products or offices.
- Monitors
- 500
- Groups
- ∞
- Status pages
- ∞
- Seats
- 25
- Every
- 1min
- Locations
- 5
- History
- 365days
- Channels
- Email, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Webhook, SMS, PagerDuty, Opsgenie
Sources
Read on 2026-09-17.Bring your openstatus monitors. Hear about the next outage first.
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