Resources

A practical library for the production monitoring problems small teams hit first: checking whether a site is down, deciding what to monitor, setting useful alerts, and explaining incidents clearly.

Check a site right now

Run the scanner or use query-matched checker pages when you need an answer about a real site.

Free tool Uptime Checker Run a scan Free tool DNS Checker Run a scan Free tool Site Downtime Checker Run a scan Free tool Is My Website Down? Run a scan Free tool Check Website Status Run a scan Free tool Site Availability Checker Run a scan

Website monitoring basics

Start here when you are deciding what monitors to create first and what the Free plan can cover.

Website Monitoring: What It Is and What to Watch First Guide · 4 min read What website monitoring actually checks, what to monitor first, how to set alert rules that don't cry wolf, and the mistakes that let real outages slip through unnoticed. Website Uptime Monitoring: How It Works Guide · 4 min read What website uptime monitoring actually checks, how to pick a check interval, how to avoid false alarms, and what "up" should really mean beyond a 200 status code. Website Downtime Monitoring Guide · 3 min read How downtime monitoring is different from a plain uptime check, what causes most outages, how fast you should find out, and the alerting mistakes that let downtime go unnoticed. How to Monitor a Website (5 Minutes) How-to · 2 min read A practical 5-minute walkthrough: create a monitor for your site, choose useful alert rules, test the alert path, and decide what to monitor next. Free Uptime Monitoring Guide · 3 min read What a genuinely free uptime monitoring plan should include, what Holter's free plan actually offers — 5 monitors, 5-minute checks, no credit card — and how to tell a real free tier from a trial in disguise. Free Website Monitoring Guide · 3 min read What free website monitoring should cover beyond a bare uptime ping, what Holter's free plan includes — 5 monitors, 5-minute checks, no credit card — and what a free tool honestly can't promise.

Alerts, uptime, and incident communication

Set alert rules that are fast without being noisy, and publish status updates when customers need context.

Website Down Alerts That Do Not Spam Your Team Guide · 2 min read How to set website down alerts that are fast enough to matter, routed to the right person, and quiet enough that your team still trusts them. What Is a Good Uptime Percentage? Answer · 3 min read What counts as good uptime for a website — 99.9% is a solid practical target — plus a correct table of how much downtime each "nines" figure allows per year. What Does Uptime Monitoring Mean? Answer · 2 min read A plain-language definition of uptime monitoring, how it differs from general website monitoring, and what it actually looks like in practice. How Often Should a Website Be Checked? Answer · 2 min read Every 5 minutes is a solid default for most websites. When it makes sense to check faster, and why checking too often isn't automatically better. Status Pages: What They're For Guide · 3 min read What a status page actually does for you and your customers, what belongs on it, why it should be powered by real monitors instead of updated by hand, and the mistakes that make one useless. How to Create a Status Page How-to · 3 min read A practical walkthrough: pick customer-facing components, attach them to real monitors, write useful incident updates, and publish a status page people can find. Does My Site Need a Status Page? Answer · 2 min read Yes, if anyone other than you depends on it working — customers, teammates, or another company's app. What a status page is for and when it's genuinely optional.

Compare

Honest side-by-side looks at Holter and the tools you might already know.

Holter vs UptimeRobot Comparison · 2 min read How Holter compares to UptimeRobot: both watch uptime from the outside; the difference is what happens beyond the ping — heartbeats for crons and backups, status pages driven by real monitors, and agent-assisted setup.

Troubleshooting a site that looks down

Short answers for figuring out whether a site is down, why it is down, and what each scan result means.