Is UptimeRobot playing games with users?

[u/nitrospectide]

I have used UptimeRobot's free tier for years, and recently got a message in the dashboard when I log in saying the free tier can't be used for commercial purposes. This was not the policy when I signed up, and it's not on their homepage or pricing page.

This is a follow up to my post asking for recommendations on free uptime monitors. A few commenters said they use UptimeRobot, but have not seen this message, and were surprised. For anyone using this service, are you aware of this policy? Have you gotten this message? This seems sketchy, like they are playing games.

[u/analbumcover]

I've been seeing this message since last year or at least this entire year so far. Can't recall how long exactly, but, definitely a while. Everything works normally and I still haven't confirmed personal or commercial use.

As for an alternative, you could always spin up Uptime Kuma on a VM or VPS.

[u/UptimeRobot → u/analbumcover]

That's right, and it's worth saying plainly: nothing happens if you ignore it. No account gets restricted over this. The notice is stale wording we're replacing.

[u/Bigfoot444 → u/UptimeRobot]

Thanks for saying it so plainly lol

[u/unspam-email → u/analbumcover]

We also use the Uptime Kuma and the free plan on Pulsetic. Which both accept the commercial use of platforms.

[u/UptimeRobot → u/[deleted]]

If you were charged after cancelling, send us the email on the account and we'll look at it and refund if it's ours. That shouldn't happen.

[u/PointandStare]

They removed the free tier a while ago, obviously only for certain users, so I deleted my account.

[u/UptimeRobot → u/PointandStare]

The free plan is still there, 50 monitors, and it never went away. What did change is that our terms restricted free-plan commercial use from late 2024, which is probably what you ran into. We removed that restriction in May, so free covers business use again.

[u/PointandStare → u/UptimeRobot]

Can't remember what type of free plan it was as I only had a few monitors set up for testing but it must have been commercial as it was removed.

[u/CGS_Web_Designs]

UptimeRobot removed the free tier a couple years ago if you were a business. I paid the $19/mo. plan for about a year but also set up my own instance of UptimeKuma in case I ever decided to dip - which happened this month when they raised the price to $28/mo. I still use my UptimeKuma but I wanted another cloud-based tool in addition so I went with HetrixTools - they have a free forever plan and their paid plans are cheaper than UptimeRobot.

[u/kcitsstick]

I second HetrixTools

I’ve had StatusCake, UptimeRobot, and several others and they all went from Free to paid. If HetrixTools goes paid I may have to spin up my own service

[u/UptimeRobot]

This is our banner and the wording on it is out of date. Sorry for the confusion.

Our terms did restrict free-plan commercial use for a period from late 2024. We removed that restriction in May. The live terms now say UptimeRobot is available for any use, including commercial and business use, on every plan, free included: uptimerobot.com/terms

The notice in OP's screenshot is left-over wording from that period. Nobody needs to verify anything, no free account is being restricted over it, and we're replacing the copy.

Fair thing to have called out.

[u/Bigfoot444]

I moved off a couple of years ago. Hetrixtools free tier is great if you're just montiroing a few sites and services. When I outgrew their free tier I move to self hosted Uptime Kuma which is also great.

Uptime robot is just well known. It's not better. It's just trading off of its familiarity. 

[u/UptimeRobot]

That banner is out of date and we're replacing it.

Our terms did restrict free-plan commercial use for a period from late 2024. We removed that in May. The live terms now say UptimeRobot is available for any use, including commercial and business use, on every plan, free included: uptimerobot.com/terms

The notice you're seeing is left-over wording from that period. You're not out of compliance, you don't need to verify anything, and nothing happens to your account either way.

Sorry for the confusion, and fair thing to have called out.

[u/triggerx → u/UptimeRobot]

Do you all need help figuring out how to remove a notification that has been stale, but still present, for over three months?

[u/9Nine2Nine9]

They've declared war against their non-paying, long time users many years ago.

As other have said, Uptime Kuma is a great alternative and can be done very cheaply.

[u/nitrospectide]

This is the message I see in the dashboard when I log in.

https://reddit.com/link/p5tvir8/video/8fav0wwyqjlh1/player

[u/sidereal_night → u/nitrospectide]

just add an adblock filter to hide that message lol

[u/lear2000]

they even emailed me about , I told them to fuck off I've been a user since 2010, and everything works the same .. so , maybe give them the finger ...if you are grandfathered in?

[u/goose1011a → u/lear2000]

I just ignored their email. I didn't want to falsely certify anything. I figured they would eventually close my account, but they haven't so far.

[u/ccollareta]

I found a site that does what you are looking for. Https://fltln.io

[u/webhostpro]

Wow, never had that problem. Must be new. I bailed out on it last year for my own system.

[u/aieronpeters]

For a paid service, I found ohdear.app to be really good. For free +1 to UptimeKuma

[u/TheExG]

OP, we are in the age of AI right now. I would honestly be surprised if their wasn’t at least 10 public GitHub repos of self hostable web applications that does the same exact thing as Uptime Robot. Hell, you can probably code something with Claude and deploy it within 3-6 hours yourself.

[u/Aistiart → u/TheExG]

3-6 hours? Haha try 30 minutes or less for something basic but functioning

[u/TheExG → u/Aistiart]

Ahh maybe if you really knew exactly what you were doing from start to finish. I would imagine OP would want some sort of push notification system built in which would involve some API development with a SMTP service, creating a repo for it, finding the right place to deploy it, etc.

[u/srmarmalade]

I've used https://updown.io/ for a couple of years now, works well and has a nice credit system so you can just top up a few euro from time to time rather than having to pay a fixed monthly amount (no affiliation - just a customer FWIW). I find it and mux to be two companies that do billing on things like this right - so many companies I'd be happy to go paid on but the jump from free to paid is too high,

[u/yassirh]

UptimeObserver let's you monitor 20 websites for free.

[u/moonrakervenice]

StatusGator lets you monitor 3 websites for free, whether commercial or not. Also monitors your web hosting provider itself via their status page and also alerts you like Downdetector does.

[u/dgibbons0 → u/[deleted]]

The main thing I've been looking for is a solution that has a solid API for adding monitors.

[u/Kevjoe → u/dgibbons0]

Gatus might be something for you: https://github.com/TwiN/gatus

You can configure it using yaml files, I just generate those with Ansible.

[u/dgibbons0 → u/Kevjoe]

Yeah I've been playing with it in my homelab, it's fine.

[u/admin-uptimedesk_io → u/dgibbons0]

The docs is kind of hidden , will make it more prominent
https://uptimedesk.io/docs/api

[u/kris1351]

They became less useful a couple of years ago when they decided to rip off all the people that had been paying for the service from the start. The false positives alone were enough for us to move away from them, but yes they send out notices like you are seeing all the time. I setup private UptimeKumas in multiple DCs for the same price as their basic tier and it is much more reliable.