An open-source status page is free to download, gives you full control and avoids vendor lock-in. It also makes you responsible for keeping the one page that must work during an outage online. We compared seven popular open-source and self-hosted status page tools on what they actually include, and when a hosted status page is the better deal.
Quick answer
- Best all-round self-hosted tool: Uptime Kuma, if you mainly want monitoring with a simple status page.
- No server at all: Upptime, which runs on GitHub Actions and GitHub Pages.
- Monitoring as code: Gatus, configured in one YAML file.
- Classic incident-and-subscriber status page: Cachet, if you are comfortable with a PHP stack and a project in transition.
- Static and simple: cState, a Hugo site you can host free on a CDN.
- Modern, with monitoring and subscribers: OpenStatus or Kener.
- Don't want to run anything: a hosted status page. Statusentry has a free plan and paid plans from $9.99/month.
Open-source status page tools compared
| Tool | License | How you run it | Built-in monitoring | Incidents and maintenance | Subscriber notifications |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uptime Kuma | MIT | One Docker container | Yes, many check types | Incidents posted by hand; maintenance windows | No status page subscribers (alerts go to your team) |
| Upptime | MIT | GitHub Actions + GitHub Pages | HTTP checks, every 5 minutes at best | Each outage is a GitHub Issue | None built in |
| Gatus | Apache-2.0 | Single binary or container, YAML config | Yes, with detailed conditions | No incident timeline | None built in |
| Cachet | BSD-3 (v2) | PHP app with database, queue and cron | No in v2; send results through its API | Yes, components, incidents and maintenance | Email in v2 |
| cState | MIT | Static Hugo site | No | Incidents written as files | RSS |
| OpenStatus | AGPL-3.0 | Several services via Docker Compose (also hosted) | Yes | Yes | Email, webhook, Slack, RSS |
| Kener | MIT | Node app with Redis | Yes | Yes, with maintenance windows | Email and RSS |
The 7 tools in more detail
1. Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma is the most popular self-hosted monitoring tool. One Docker container gives you HTTP, TCP, DNS, ping and many other checks, alerts to dozens of channels, and simple status pages that look good without configuration.
Watch out for: it is monitoring-first. Incidents are written by hand, and visitors can't subscribe to updates by email, so customers have to come and check the page.
2. Upptime
Upptime uses GitHub as its whole stack: Actions run the checks, Issues record outages, and Pages hosts the status site. There is no server to maintain, and it's free for public repositories.
Watch out for: GitHub Actions schedules can't run more often than every 5 minutes, checks are HTTP-focused, and there are no subscriber notifications. It's also a GitHub-shaped workflow, which suits developers more than support teams.
3. Gatus
Gatus is a small, fast monitoring service configured entirely in YAML. Conditions can check status codes, response times, response bodies, certificate expiry and DNS, and the config can live in Git and go through code review.
Watch out for: it shows health rather than telling a story. There is no incident timeline for writing customer-facing updates and no subscriber list.
4. Cachet
Cachet is the classic open-source status page: components, incidents with investigating, identified, watching and fixed states, scheduled maintenance and email subscribers. It is the closest open-source match to the Atlassian Statuspage feature set.
Watch out for: the last tagged release of v2 is from 2023, and v3 is still being rebuilt. It needs PHP, a database, a queue worker and cron, and has no built-in monitoring in v2, so you feed it check results yourself.
5. cState
cState is a static status page built with Hugo. You write incidents as Markdown files and deploy to Netlify, Cloudflare Pages or any CDN. Because it's static, it is fast and very hard to take down.
Watch out for: no monitoring and no subscribers. Every update is a commit and a deploy, which is slow in the middle of an incident unless your team lives in Git.
6. OpenStatus
OpenStatus combines multi-region monitoring with status pages, incidents and subscriber notifications. It is available both as a hosted service and as open source you can run yourself.
Watch out for: the AGPL-3.0 license, and a self-hosted setup made of several services rather than one container.
7. Kener
Kener is a newer open-source status page with built-in monitors, incidents, maintenance windows and email subscribers, and a clean modern design.
Watch out for: a younger project with a smaller community. Plan for upgrades and test them before you roll out.
Self-hosted vs hosted status page: the real cost
The software is free. Running a status page well is not. Before you choose a self-hosted tool, check these five points:
- It must stay up when you are down. A status page on the same cloud account, region, DNS or Kubernetes cluster as your product fails at exactly the wrong moment. Host it on separate infrastructure, ideally a different provider.
- Email has to reach people. Subscriber notifications need an SMTP provider, sending-domain setup (SPF, DKIM) and bounce handling. Without them, notifications land in spam.
- Custom domain and SSL. Serving status.yourcompany.com means DNS and certificate renewal you have to keep working.
- Updates and security. A public web app needs patching. Projects also stall: several popular tools have gone months or years without a release.
- Someone on the team owns it. Every hour spent maintaining the status page is an hour not spent on your product.
A rough rule: if the status page is mainly for your own team or a side project, open source is a great fit. If customers rely on it during outages, a hosted status page usually costs less than the engineering time it saves.
| Self-hosted open source | Hosted (e.g. Statusentry) | |
|---|---|---|
| Software cost | $0 | $0 (Free) or $9.99–$39.99/month |
| Hosting and email | You pay and configure | Included |
| Independent of your infrastructure | Only if you host it elsewhere | Yes |
| Custom domain with SSL | You configure and renew | Included on Business and Enterprise |
| Subscriber email, Slack and webhook | Depends on the tool; you run the delivery | Included on paid plans |
| Maintenance and upgrades | Your team | Done for you |
| Full control of code and data | Yes | No |
When a hosted status page makes more sense
Statusentry is built for teams that want the Cachet-style essentials without running them: components, incidents, scheduled maintenance, uptime history, email, Slack and webhook subscribers, a custom domain with managed SSL and a REST API. Paid plans also include built-in endpoint monitoring, and every status page is server-rendered for search engines and AI crawlers.
- Free: a hosted status page with SSL, unlimited incidents and 2 services, no credit card.
- Start Up, $9.99/month: 1,000 subscribers, webhooks, the API and monitoring.
- Business, $19.99/month: 5,000 subscribers, 25 team members and your own domain.
Want to compare hosted tools too? Read the best Statuspage alternatives in 2026, or create a free status page and see it live in a few minutes.
