Better Stack

Overview

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in the Netherlands, Better Uptime is an all-in-one observability platform combining uptime monitoring, status pages, and log management. Users can configure their first monitor in just 20 seconds, supporting HTTP, SSL, Ping, port, and heartbeat checks. When service anomalies are detected, alerts are delivered via phone, SMS, Slack, email, PagerDuty, Webhook, and more.

Originally launched as Better Uptime, the platform rebranded to Better Stack in 2024, integrating Logtail log management to create a closed "monitor → alert → log analysis → status page" loop. Better Stack serves over 10,000 business customers, processing billions of health check requests daily.

Key Strengths

• 20-Second Setup: No code or configuration required — enter a URL and start monitoring. Create your first monitor with just a target address and notification channel. See Monitoring & Alerting Setup Guide.
• Multi-Channel Alerting & On-Call: Supports 5+ notification types — phone voice, SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, Webhook. Built-in on-call scheduling and escalation policies ensure no alert is missed.
• SSL & Heartbeat Monitoring: Auto-detects SSL certificate expiry with 30/60-day advance warnings. Heartbeat checks suit Cron jobs, background tasks, and other services that need liveness detection.
• Beautiful Status Pages: Customizable status pages support 2 modes — public (for external SLO disclosure) and private (for internal teams). Status pages generate automatically from monitoring data — no manual updates.

Product Ecosystem

Better Stack All-in-One Platform

Better Stack consists of three product lines:

• Better Uptime: Website and application uptime monitoring with global multi-node probing
• Logtail: ClickHouse-based log management (see Logtail)
• Better Stack Status Page: Auto-generated status pages

Integrations & API

A RESTful API manages monitors, alert rules, and status pages. Integrates with 100+ tools including PagerDuty, Slack, Discord, Telegram, and Microsoft Teams. Webhooks can connect to custom workflows.

Limitations

• Limited Free Tier: The free plan has 5-minute monitoring intervals and no log management; advanced analytics require Pro or Enterprise.
• Shallower Logs Than Dedicated Platforms: Integrated Logtail is easy to use but lacks the advanced querying and ML analysis of Splunk or Datadog.
• Insufficient China Coverage: No mainland China monitoring nodes means higher latency for domestic websites; pair with a local monitoring service.
• Short Brand History: The Better Uptime → Better Stack rebrand is recent, and some users are still adjusting to the new brand.

Use Cases

• Individual Developers / Small Teams (Rating ★★★★★): Free tier with 10 monitors + status pages and 20-second setup offers a zero-cost entry.
• Small & Mid-Sized SaaS Companies (Rating ★★★★★): One platform for monitoring + logs + status pages reduces multi-tool management overhead.
• SLO Disclosure for Ops Teams (Rating ★★★★): Auto-generated status pages are great for publicly showing service availability.
• Full-Stack Observability at Scale (Rating ★★★): Pair with deeper platforms like Datadog or Splunk for large enterprises.

Pricing

FAQ

• What is the relationship between Better Stack and Better Uptime? Better Stack is the rebranded name; Better Uptime is its monitoring sub-product. The current unified product is Better Stack, with monitoring still delivered via Better Uptime; see cloud monitoring services comparison.
• Which monitor types does Better Stack support? HTTP/HTTPS, SSL certificates, Ping, port checks, DNS queries, and heartbeat checks, among others; see synthetic monitoring and uptime practice.
• What alert channels does Better Stack offer? Phone, SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, Discord, Telegram, email, and Webhook, with built-in on-call scheduling and escalation policies; see alert fatigue and on-call practice.
• Does Better Stack include log management? Yes. Via Logtail, built on ClickHouse for fast log search and analysis. See Logtail.