Pingniner vs UptimeRobot
UptimeRobot is the best-known name in uptime monitoring and its free plan is genuinely hard to beat on volume. The difference is scope: UptimeRobot watches things from the outside, and Pingniner also watches the machines themselves.
Choose UptimeRobot if
You want the largest possible number of external checks for nothing, or you need history going back a year or more.
Choose Pingniner if
You want servers, workstations and websites under one roof, on one bill, with one number to keep an eye on.
Side by side
| Pingniner | UptimeRobot | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 5 monitors, 5-minute checks | 50 monitors, 5-minute checks |
| Entry paid plan | $6/month — 30 monitors | €10/month — 10 monitors (€9 billed yearly) |
| Fastest checks | 30 seconds | 15 seconds on their top plan |
| Check history | 30 days | 3 to 24 months depending on plan |
| Incident history | Kept permanently, on every plan | Bounded by the retention above |
| Server monitoring | CPU, memory and disk through an installed agent | Not offered — all checks are external |
| Workstation monitoring | Yes, same agent | Not offered |
| Blacklist monitoring | Yes, across the major DNSBLs | Not offered |
| DNS record monitoring | Not offered | Yes |
| Page change detection | Keyword matching only | Yes |
| Team members | Included in the plan, not billed per seat | Login seats included per plan; free plan has none |
| Alert recipients | Unlimited contacts on every plan | Notify-only seats sold separately on the free plan |
| Monitoring locations | Nine | Multiple, count varies by plan |
Green marks whichever side is stronger on that row. UptimeRobot figures were read from their pricing page on 28 August 2026, and pricing moves — check it before you decide. Pingniner's own figures are on our pricing page.
Where Pingniner is different
The machine, not just the URL
Every monitor type UptimeRobot offers looks at your infrastructure from the outside. That tells you a site stopped answering; it does not tell you the disk filled up an hour earlier. Pingniner runs an agent on your servers and workstations reporting CPU, memory and disk, so the cause and the symptom live on the same dashboard.
One limit, any mix
There is a single number to think about: how many monitors you have. A monitor can be a website, a server, a workstation, a ping, a port, a heartbeat or a blacklist, with no per-type caps and nothing exempt. Rearranging what you watch never means changing plan.
Blacklist monitoring
If your mail server lands on a DNSBL you usually find out from a customer who never got your email. Pingniner watches the lists that mail providers actually consult and tells you the day it happens, with the delisting process for each one.
Incidents kept for good
Retention limits what raw check history we keep, not what happened. Incident records are kept permanently on every plan including the free one, so a yearly uptime figure is still a yearly uptime figure.
Where UptimeRobot is stronger
Every one of these is a real reason to pick them instead.
A far bigger free plan
Fifty monitors free against our five is not close, and if what you need is a lot of simple external checks at no cost, that is the honest answer. Our free plan is a place to start, not a place to run fifty sites from.
Much longer history
Twelve to twenty-four months of check history against our thirty days. If you need to pull up a response-time chart from last spring, they can and we cannot.
Faster than we go
Their top plan checks every fifteen seconds; ours stops at thirty. For most sites the difference is academic, but it is a real difference.
A longer track record
They have been doing this far longer, with a larger integration catalogue and a great deal more public mileage. That is worth something and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Questions
Can I move my monitors across from UptimeRobot?
There is no automatic import. Sites, pings and ports take a minute each to recreate, and the free plan is enough to try the ones you care about most before deciding.
Do servers and workstations count against my monitor limit?
Yes. There is one limit and everything draws from it — a server counts the same as a website. That is the trade for not having separate allowances to juggle.
Is Pingniner cheaper?
At the entry paid tier, yes, and by some distance per monitor. On the free tier, no. Which matters depends entirely on whether you are paying.
Also compared: Pingniner vs Better Stack · Pingniner vs Pingdom · Pingniner vs Site24x7 · Pingniner vs Oh Dear · Pingniner vs Cronitor
The only comparison that settles it
Five monitors free, no card, no trial clock. Point it at the things you actually care about and see whether it tells you what you need to know.
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