Upptime vs Gatus: Which Status Page to Use?

Quick Verdict

Gatus is the better monitoring tool — it runs on your infrastructure, checks endpoints every few seconds, supports complex alerting conditions, and gives you a real-time web dashboard. Upptime is the better choice if you want a public status page with zero infrastructure cost and zero maintenance. Pick based on whether you need monitoring depth or simplicity.

Overview

Upptime is a serverless monitoring solution that runs entirely on GitHub. GitHub Actions checks your endpoints, GitHub Issues tracks incidents, and GitHub Pages hosts the status page. No server, no Docker, no database — just a GitHub repository.

Gatus is a developer-oriented monitoring tool that runs as a Docker container. It monitors HTTP, TCP, ICMP, DNS, and SSH endpoints with configurable conditions, supports 20+ alerting integrations, and serves a status page from a dynamic web UI. All configuration is done via YAML.

Both are open-source and free. The fundamental difference is architecture: Upptime delegates everything to GitHub’s infrastructure, while Gatus runs on yours.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Upptime	Gatus
Infrastructure required	None (GitHub)	Docker container
Configuration	.upptimerc.yml in repo	YAML config file
Monitoring frequency	5 minutes minimum	Configurable (seconds)
HTTP monitoring	Yes	Yes
TCP/ICMP monitoring	Yes	Yes
DNS monitoring	No	Yes
SSH monitoring	No	Yes
Custom conditions	Status codes only	Status, response time, body, headers, certificates
Alerting integrations	Slack, Discord, email	Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, Telegram, Gotify, ntfy, 20+
Status page	Static (GitHub Pages)	Dynamic web UI
Incident management	GitHub Issues (auto)	Built-in
Response time history	Git commits (YAML)	SQLite/PostgreSQL
API	GitHub API	REST API
Dashboard	Static HTML	Real-time SPA
Cost	Free	Free (self-hosted)
Maintenance	Zero	Container management

Setup Complexity

Upptime wins on setup simplicity. You fork a template repository, edit a YAML file, set a GitHub secret, enable GitHub Pages, and you’re done. No server provisioning, no Docker, no networking. The entire process takes 5 minutes.

Gatus requires a Docker host, a docker-compose.yml, and a YAML config file defining your endpoints. It’s still straightforward — maybe 15 minutes — but you need infrastructure to run it on. If you’re already running Docker services, adding Gatus is trivial. If you’re not, it’s a bigger ask.

Monitoring Depth

Gatus is significantly more powerful as a monitoring tool. It supports complex conditions like:

conditions:
  - "[STATUS] == 200"
  - "[RESPONSE_TIME] < 500"
  - "[BODY].status == 'healthy'"
  - "[CERTIFICATE_EXPIRATION] > 72h"

You can check response bodies, validate certificate expiry, enforce response time thresholds, and combine multiple conditions. Upptime checks whether an endpoint returns an expected status code — that’s essentially it.

Gatus also monitors DNS and SSH endpoints, which Upptime doesn’t support. For internal network monitoring (databases, message queues, internal APIs), Gatus is the only option — Upptime can only reach publicly accessible URLs from GitHub Actions runners.

Status Page Quality

Upptime’s status page is a static site hosted on GitHub Pages. It looks clean and professional, with uptime percentages, response time graphs, and incident history. But it’s rebuilt on each check cycle, so it’s never truly real-time.

Gatus serves a dynamic web UI that updates in real time. It shows endpoint status, response time charts, and uptime history. It’s less polished visually but more responsive. For internal dashboards where you’re monitoring dozens of services, the real-time updates matter.

For public-facing status pages where you want to communicate to customers, Upptime’s static approach actually works well — it loads fast, requires no backend, and looks professional.

Alerting

Gatus supports 20+ alerting integrations including Slack, Discord, PagerDuty, Telegram, Gotify, ntfy, email, and more. You can configure alerting per endpoint with different thresholds and escalation logic.

Upptime’s alerting is simpler — it opens GitHub Issues when downtime is detected and can send notifications via Slack, Discord, or email. There’s no escalation, no per-endpoint alerting configuration, and no on-call rotation.

Use Cases

Choose Upptime If…

• You want a public status page with zero cost and zero maintenance
• You’re monitoring a few public-facing websites or APIs
• You don’t need sub-5-minute monitoring intervals
• You’re comfortable with GitHub as your monitoring platform
• You want incident history tracked in GitHub Issues

Choose Gatus If…

• You need to monitor internal services not reachable from the internet
• You want sub-minute monitoring intervals
• You need complex alerting conditions (response body checks, certificate monitoring)
• You need PagerDuty, Telegram, or other advanced alerting integrations
• You want DNS, SSH, or TCP monitoring beyond HTTP
• You prefer a real-time dashboard over a static page

Final Verdict

For most self-hosters monitoring their own infrastructure, Gatus is the better choice. The ability to monitor internal services, check response bodies, validate certificates, and alert through 20+ channels makes it a proper monitoring solution. Upptime is deliberately limited — it’s a status page first, a monitor second.

Upptime shines in one specific scenario: you need a clean, public-facing status page and you don’t want to run another server. If your monitoring needs are basic (HTTP status checks on public URLs every 5 minutes), Upptime does it for free with zero maintenance.

If you want the best of both worlds — real monitoring AND a public status page — run Gatus for monitoring and alerting, then use its built-in status page or pair it with Upptime for the public-facing dashboard. For a more full-featured UI-based alternative, see Uptime Kuma.

Related

• Setting Up Upptime: GitHub-Powered Status Page
• How to Self-Host Gatus with Docker Compose
• How to Self-Host Uptime Kuma with Docker
• Self-Hosting Cachet with Docker Compose
• Uptime Kuma vs Gatus
• Best Self-Hosted Monitoring & Uptime Tools
• Docker Compose Basics