Website Monitoring Tools: Uptime, Server Health and Error Tracking

Website monitoring tools tell you something is wrong before your customers do. A small business usually needs four kinds: an uptime monitor that checks the site every few minutes, error tracking for the code, basic server health alerts, and real-user speed data from Google. For many sites, the free tiers of UptimeRobot or Better Stack, Sentry's free plan and Google Search Console cover most of that without spending anything.

This guide is for owners, managers and agencies who want to know which tools are worth setting up, what the free plans include, and when a paid plan or a managed setup makes sense. Harsh takes no commission from any provider named here.

#The four kinds of monitoring

Each type of monitoring answers a different question, and none replaces the others.

The flow only works if the alert reaches someone who can act. Decide who gets alerts, on which channel, and what they do first. A monitor that emails an inbox nobody reads is no better than no monitor.

#Uptime monitoring: UptimeRobot, Better Stack and Pingdom

An uptime monitor sends a request to your site from outside every few minutes and alerts you when it fails or takes too long. Good monitors also check that a word appears on the page (so a blank error page counts as down), and warn you before your SSL certificate or domain expires.

Here is what each provider's pricing page listed at the time of writing (November 2026). Free tiers change often, so check the linked pricing pages before you decide.

Which to choose:

• One or a few business sites: UptimeRobot's free plan is hard to beat for basic checks. Upgrade if 5 minutes between checks is too slow for you.
• A team that already uses Slack and wants logs too: Better Stack's free plan bundles uptime, logs and error tracking.
• A store that wants to test the checkout itself every few minutes: look at a paid plan with transaction or "advanced" checks, such as Pingdom's.

Since SSL certificates are moving to much shorter lifetimes, from 200 days in 2026 to 47 days by 2029, an expiry alert is worth turning on even if your host renews automatically. Our guide to free vs paid SSL certificates explains the change.

#Error tracking: Sentry

Error tracking records errors from your code as they happen, with the page, the browser and the line of code involved. It catches problems an uptime monitor cannot see: the home page loads, but the "Place order" button fails for Safari users, or a form throws an error after submission.

As of November 2026, Sentry's free Developer plan lists one user, 5,000 errors a month, one uptime monitor, one cron monitor and 30 days of history. Its Team plan is listed at USD 26 a month billed yearly and adds unlimited users. Better Stack's free plan also includes error tracking. Check Sentry's pricing page (opens in a new tab) for current limits.

Error tracking fits best on web apps, custom code and busy stores. On a simple WordPress brochure site, the server's PHP error log and an uptime monitor usually catch enough. Setting it up well means filtering noise: a free plan's error quota can be used up in a day by one repeating error.

#Server metrics: CPU, memory and disk

Server metrics show whether the machine behind your site is running short of resources. The three that matter most for a business site are:

• CPU: sustained high use means slow pages and timeouts under load.
• Memory: when it runs out, PHP processes or the database get killed, which shows up as 500 or 502 errors.
• Disk space: a full disk stops backups, logs, uploads and sometimes the database. It is one of the most common causes of a sudden outage on a VPS.

On shared and managed hosting, the host's panel usually shows usage graphs, and you rely on the host for alerts. On a VPS or cloud server, you need your own: a monitoring agent on the server that alerts when CPU, memory or disk cross a threshold, such as disk above 80 percent. Many cloud providers include basic graphs and alerts in their dashboards. Our guide to 500, 502 and 504 errors shows how resource limits turn into those errors.

#Core Web Vitals field data: Search Console and CrUX

Field data is speed measured from real visitors' browsers, not from a single test. Google's Core Web Vitals report in Search Console uses data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), covers the last 28 days, and groups your pages by three metrics:

Two things to know. First, CrUX only includes pages and sites with enough Chrome visitors, so a small or new site may see no data; use lab tests like PageSpeed Insights until it builds up. Second, because the window is 28 days, a fix takes weeks to show fully in the report. Check the report monthly rather than daily. Our guide to Core Web Vitals for business websites explains what to do when a metric fails.

#What a small business actually needs

Start simple and add tools only when they answer a real question.

1. Every site: one uptime monitor on the home page and one on a key page such as contact or checkout, with keyword checks and SSL and domain expiry alerts. Send alerts to two people.
2. Every site on Google: Search Console verified, with email alerts on, and a monthly look at the Core Web Vitals report.
3. Stores and web apps: add error tracking, and a check that the checkout or login works.
4. VPS and cloud servers: add server metrics with alerts on disk, memory and CPU, plus backup success alerts.

Monitoring tells you what broke; backups let you recover. Our website backup and disaster recovery plan covers the other half, and the website maintenance checklist lists the monthly checks to pair with your alerts.

#When to get help

You can set up a free uptime monitor in a few minutes on your own, and you should. Get help when alerts keep firing and nobody knows why, when you run a VPS without server alerts, when you want error tracking on a store or app without drowning in noise, or when you want someone else to receive the alerts and act on them.

Our website monitoring setup service covers uptime, error tracking, server alerts and a clear plan for who responds. For ongoing care where someone watches the alerts and fixes problems, see website maintenance and support. If the real issue is speed, start with website performance optimisation.