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Should I self-host Pingdom?
Uptime Kuma boots in seconds, checks HTTP/TCP/DNS/ping, pages you through ntfy or Telegram, and replaces the entire Pingdom bill. Monitoring your uptime from a box you control is the one recursion self-hosting handles fine — put it on a different provider than what it watches.
The math (nothing hidden, including your time)
| Pingdom (Synthetic Monitoring · 10 uptime checks) | $18.00/mo |
| VPS share + storage | −$0.30/mo |
| Your maintenance: 10 min/mo at $20/h | −$3.33/mo |
| Net saving | $14.37/mo |
| Setup: 11 min measured (one-time) | $3.67 |
| Break-even | 0.3 months |
| Markup Index (price ÷ real self-host cost) | 5.0× |
Price: source, checked 2026-08-06. Inputs are stored in git; every number above is derived, never hand-written.
What you lose
- Multi-region probes — Kuma checks from one vantage point unless you federate it
- Pingdom's RUM and transaction checks
What you're paying Pingdom for
- uptime checks (HTTP/TCP/ping)
- alerting on downtime
- status pages
- response-time history
Ranked alternatives
A public status page whose entire configuration is one YAML file you own: the checks, the pass conditions and the alerting, declared once and served as a page.
Uptime monitoring and status pages from one container, with no monitor quota and no per-check billing.
Hardware
Runs comfortably on Raspberry Pi.
The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)
# Uptime Kuma — status monitoring; image ships its own healthcheck binary
services:
uptime-kuma:
image: louislam/uptime-kuma:1
container_name: uptime-kuma
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "3001:3001"
volumes:
- kuma-data:/app/data
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD", "extra/healthcheck"]
interval: 5s
timeout: 30s
retries: 30
start_period: 30s
volumes:
kuma-data:
Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/pingdom has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.
Verification
Protocol v1 · verified by zernonia on 2026-08-10 · setup measured at 11 min · AI assistant: claude-code (allowed & stated)
What broke
- Boot to healthy measured at 25s on the 2GB reference env
Full timed log
# Pingdom — verdict log - **Date:** 2026-08-10 - **Verdict:** YES — worth it - **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code) ## Setup evidence - Compose: `compose/pingdom-uptime-kuma.yml` - Boot to healthy: **25s** measured this session - Setup time recorded: 11 min (boot + configuration to first working workflow) ## What broke / notes - Boot to healthy measured at 25s on the 2GB reference env ## The call Uptime Kuma boots in seconds, checks HTTP/TCP/DNS/ping, pages you through ntfy or Telegram, and replaces the entire Pingdom bill. Monitoring your uptime from a box you control is the one recursion self-hosting handles fine — put it on a different provider than what it watches.
Verdict history
- 2026-08-10: unscored → YES — Initial verdict: Uptime Kuma boots in seconds, checks HTTP/TCP/DNS/ping, pages you through ntfy or Telegram, and replaces the e.