Uptime Kuma is a free, open-source, self-hosted uptime monitor with a modern dashboard, status pages, and alerts across 90-plus notification services.
Uptime Kuma is a free, open-source uptime monitoring tool that users run on their own infrastructure to track the availability of websites, servers, and other services. It was created by developer Louis Lam and first released in July 2021, built as a modern, actively maintained alternative after Lam found existing free self-hosted monitoring tools outdated or abandoned.
The project is released under the MIT License and has become one of the most popular self-hosted monitoring tools available, with well over 88,000 stars on GitHub as of mid-2026, reflecting a large and active community of users and contributors.
Technically, it is built with a Vue.js frontend and Node.js backend that communicate over WebSockets for real-time dashboard updates, and it can be deployed via Docker or installed directly on a server running Node.js 20.4 or later.
Uptime Kuma supports monitoring across a wide range of protocols and target types, including HTTP and HTTPS uptime checks, HTTP keyword and JSON-query matching, TCP port checks, WebSocket connections, ping, DNS record lookups, push-based monitors for external heartbeat signals, Steam game server status, and Docker container health.
When a monitor detects downtime, Uptime Kuma can notify users through more than 90 integrations covering popular services such as Telegram, Discord, Slack, Gotify, Pushover, and standard email via SMTP, so alerts reach whatever channel a team already uses.
The dashboard includes public, shareable status pages with custom domain support, historical ping and response-time charts, TLS certificate expiration monitoring, proxy configuration, two-factor authentication for account security, and a fast, reactive UI available in both light and dark modes.
Uptime Kuma is completely free and open source under the MIT License. There are no paid tiers, subscriptions, or feature restrictions; every capability of the tool is available to anyone who self-hosts it.
Because it is self-hosted, the only ongoing cost is whatever server, VPS, or NAS device the user chooses to run it on, which is typically inexpensive given the tool's lightweight resource requirements.
It is used to monitor the uptime and health of websites, APIs, servers, and other services, alerting users when something goes down.
Yes, it is completely free and open source under the MIT License with no paid tiers.
It was created by developer Louis Lam, known as louislam on GitHub, and first released in July 2021.
It is most commonly deployed via an official Docker image, or installed directly on a server running Node.js 20.4 or later.
It can monitor HTTP and HTTPS endpoints, TCP ports, ping, DNS records, WebSocket connections, push-based heartbeats, Steam game servers, and Docker containers.
Yes, it includes public, shareable status pages with support for custom domains.
Uptime Kuma is free and self-hosted with a broader range of monitor types, while UptimeRobot is a managed SaaS product that requires no hosting but has paid tiers for advanced features.
It supports more than 90 notification integrations, including Telegram, Discord, Slack, Gotify, Pushover, and email.