changedetection Review, Pricing & Features

changedetection.io is a free, open-source tool for monitoring website changes, price drops, and restocks. See how it works, self-hosting steps, and pricing.

Category
DevOps
Pricing
Freemium, from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 18, 2026
Free PlanWeb AppAPIOpen SourceSelf-Hosted

Overview

changedetection.io is a free, open-source website change monitoring tool that alerts users whenever a tracked web page's content, price, or availability changes. It is designed to be self-hosted, most commonly via Docker, and is developed in the open on GitHub under maintainer dgtlmoon, with an optional paid cloud-hosted version for users who don't want to manage their own infrastructure.

Typical uses include catching e-commerce price drops, getting notified when an out-of-stock item comes back in stock, tracking changes to legal or policy documents, and monitoring competitor or portfolio websites for updates.

Key Features

Users can select specific elements to monitor on a page — via a visual selector, CSS/XPath selectors, or LXML regex functions — so alerts fire only on meaningful changes rather than every minor page update. Dedicated price and stock-detection logic supports configurable price thresholds and back-in-stock alerts.

Built-in browser automation lets watches perform steps like logging in, accepting cookie banners, or adding an item to a cart before capturing content. The tool can also track PDF file changes via filesize and checksum comparison, and it sends notifications through the Apprise library to destinations including Discord, Slack, Telegram, email, ntfy, Matrix, Rocket.Chat, and custom webhooks.

Pricing

changedetection.io is free to self-host indefinitely; the only cost is the infrastructure a user runs it on. For users who prefer not to manage hosting, a cloud-hosted SaaS plan is available starting at $8.99 per month, supporting up to 5,000 monitored URLs with checks as frequent as every 5 minutes.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Free and fully open-source with no forced limits when self-hosted
  • Highly flexible element selection and filtering for precise alerts
  • Wide range of built-in notification integrations via Apprise
  • Active open-source development community

Cons

  • Self-hosting requires basic technical setup (Docker or Python environment)
  • High-frequency or large-scale monitoring is easier via the paid cloud plan rather than self-hosting
  • Interface is functional rather than highly polished
  • No official enterprise support tier for self-hosted deployments

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is changedetection.io free?

Yes, the self-hosted open-source version is completely free. A paid cloud-hosted plan starting at $8.99/month is available for users who don't want to manage their own server.

How do I self-host changedetection.io?

It can be run via a Docker container, installed with pip, or run from source, and is available on GitHub under the maintainer dgtlmoon.

Can changedetection.io track prices and restocks?

Yes, it has dedicated logic for price-change thresholds and for alerting when an out-of-stock product becomes available again.

What notification services does it support?

Through the Apprise library it supports Discord, Slack, Telegram, email, Office 365, ntfy, Matrix, Rocket.Chat, and custom webhooks.

Does it work on pages that require login or interaction?

Yes, browser automation steps let a watch log in, click through pages, or add items to a cart before capturing the content to monitor.

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